Belgrade student rally draws 150,000 ahead of Serbia's snap election
About 150,000 backers of Serbia's opposition student movement marched through Belgrade on Thursday, rallying at Slavija Square three days before Sunday's parliamentary election.
Belgrade student rally draws 150,000 ahead of Serbia's snap election
March on Slavija Square
The biggest Belgrade student rally of the campaign filled the capital on Thursday, with the independent crowd-size monitoring group the Archive of Public Gatherings estimating about 150,000 people at the gathering ahead of Sunday's parliamentary election. Demonstrators marched through the city before converging on Slavija Square, the site of some of the movement's largest previous protests.
Among the crowd was Marija Nedeljkovic Radic, 47, who said she came to support the Student List because young people finally gave her hope of living in a normal country.
"Really, for the first time in my life, I believe that it is possible."
Another attendee, a 35-year-old named Igor, framed the vote as the movement's final step, telling those around him to meet again at the polling stations on the 25th.
From Novi Sad collapse to election call
The protests behind the rally began after the 2024 collapse of a canopy at the newly renovated Novi Sad railway station, which killed 16 people. The tragedy, widely blamed on corruption, triggered some of Serbia's largest demonstrations since the fall of Slobodan Milosevic in 2000.
The anti-corruption movement, led by university students, grew from demands for a transparent investigation into the collapse into calls for an early election. President Aleksandar Vucic announced the snap vote last month, setting up his biggest electoral challenge since his Serbian Progressive party (SNS) took power in 2012.
The Student List challenge
The Student List, a leaderless movement of student-backed candidates, is running 250 candidates for the 250-seat parliament, many drawn from academia or standing as deliberate political outsiders. Its broad platform has at its core a pledge to fight corruption.
Jugoslav Gasic, a university professor among the candidates, told the crowd the movement was ending 14 years of what he called humiliation, chaos and betrayal.
"You deserve better, and we know how to deliver it. Students are winning!"
Vucic's response and election-day worries
Vucic, 56, who resigned to run for prime minister, addressed supporters at a Belgrade sports hall on Thursday. He has regularly accused the student movement of being a foreign-funded coup attempt.
"Let us go out and defeat them! Defeat them decisively!"
He told supporters also to remember the threat he said the movement posed: "Let us never forget how they tried to bring down our state. Let us always protect and defend it".
In the days running up to the ballot, civil society organisations said Serbia could not offer "free and fair elections", pointing to intimidation, arrests and the misuse of public resources during the campaign. Their concerns included:
- Belgrade prosecutors on Wednesday questioned six people arrested on suspicion of plotting "violence, riots and attacks" on election day
- Reports of threats and intimidation targeting student demonstrators have grown in recent months, though the rallies have remained largely peaceful
Serbia lacks reliable independent polling, and surveys have produced widely differing results. Polls open Sunday.
