A movement with no leader

The Serbia student movement now on the ballot has organised itself without a single face. Student List, its electoral vehicle, is fielding 250 candidates - mainly locally respected academics, alongside actors, musicians and farmers - each one approved by a citizens' assembly. The movement's spokespeople decline to identify themselves: one student organiser, who is studying for a masters in dramatic arts at the University of Belgrade, asked not to be named, in keeping with the movement's leaderless structure.

The campaign runs through those same assemblies:

• Door-to-door canvassing, with volunteers collecting canvas data from voters
• An "A student in every village" programme aimed at rural voters, the base the ruling party has counted on
• A slogan - "Serbia or mafia?" - that points to repeated allegations of links between the SNS and organised crime, which the government denies

The organiser said the election is only the beginning: "Once we remove the regime, the big debate starts in Serbia about what we should do next".

From the Novi Sad collapse to nationwide protest

The movement traces its origin to 1 November 2024, when a concrete canopy collapsed at the railway station in Novi Sad, Serbia's second largest city, killing 16 people. The youngest victim was six-year-old Sara Firic, who was sitting on a bench with her grandfather and older sister.

Grief turned into a ritual of protest: demonstrators blocked a nearby crossroads for the same number of minutes as lives were lost. Anger deepened as details emerged of botched refurbishment work carried out in what critics described as a corrupt deal with a Chinese consortium. Protests were suppressed, and Vučić branded the demonstrators western-backed "terrorists".

Pressure forced an early vote

That pressure ultimately forced Vučić to resign as president and call a snap parliamentary election, as he seeks to become prime minister. The race is genuinely uncertain: some polling suggests Student List is edging ahead, other polling that the SNS is consolidating support.

An uneven playing field

The Student List faces a campaign environment its supporters describe as tilted. Vučić made 129 live television appearances in August, more than four times the previous month's total. A September survey by the Centre for Research, Transparency and Accountability (CRTA) found no negative coverage of the ruling majority on Serbian television channels, against 37% of airtime going negative for the opposition.

Other reported obstacles include:

• An accusation by Student List that the foreign ministry rigged the diaspora vote by keeping overseas polling stations open in pro-Vučić areas while closing them in parts of North America; the ministry did not respond to a request for comment
• Findings by the digital rights group SHARE Foundation that members of the student movement were targeted by advanced spyware
• A Reuters report this week on intimidation and beating of protesters by police

The European Council on Foreign Relations has warned of further street protests, and of possible violent repression, depending on the election outcome and the margin of victory.

Preliminary results are expected in the early hours of Monday morning.