Serbia's Vucic concedes defeat as student-led movement wins snap parliamentary election

Serbia's long-dominant leader Aleksandar Vucic has conceded defeat in Sunday's snap parliamentary election, acknowledging that a movement born out of nearly two years of student-led protests had won. "It is clear that we have lost," Vucic told supporters, according to Al Jazeera and Euronews.

Citing a sample of votes, Vucic said the Student List was expected to win between 135 and 140 of the 250 seats, comfortably above the 126 needed for a majority, while his Serbian Progressive Party (SNS) was projected to get about 105. Final official results had not been published at the time of writing.

Record turnout

Serbia's State Election Commission reported turnout of 64.9 percent by 6 pm local time, which Al Jazeera described as the highest since the break-up of Yugoslavia. Pre-election polls had pointed to a tight race, with one Ipsos survey giving the SNS a lead and others placing the students ahead.

Vucic, who resigned as president in September to run for prime minister, called the early election after months of mass demonstrations. The local monitoring group CRTA said it recorded pressure on voters or polling staff at nearly a third of the 500 stations it observed.

From protest to parliament

The protest movement began after the collapse of a railway station canopy in the northern city of Novi Sad in 2024, which killed 16 people. Many Serbians blamed the disaster on corruption and poor oversight, and student groups went on to lead sustained demonstrations demanding accountability. The government and the SNS have rejected accusations of corruption and repression.

The Student List, headed by cardiologist Ilija Srdanovic, fielded 250 largely new candidates, including academics, actors and farmers. A movement candidate described the result as the start of "a new chapter". Observers say the students will now face the harder task of forming a government and setting positions on the economy, energy, relations with the European Union and Kosovo.

Why it matters

The result marks one of the most significant political shifts in the Balkans in years, ending more than a decade of SNS dominance. Serbia is an EU candidate country that has tried to balance ties with Brussels, Russia and China, so the new government's foreign policy choices will be closely watched across Europe.