Students from all over Serbia gathered on Wednesday evening in Belgrade where they will hold their final rally before Sunday’s early parliamentary elections. The snap election follows massive student-led demonstrations sparked by the November 2024 collapse of the Novi Sad railway station shelter that killed 16 people, which the public widely blamed on government corruption.
In the early elections, the list supported by students represents the biggest challenge for the ruling progressive party of former president Aleksandar Vucic. It was the latter who announced the new parliamentarians in September to then resign from the leadership of the state in order to run for prime minister.
More than 1,000 students marched from several cities and towns to Belgrade. Along the way, they were greeted by various citizens who shouted victory. In the late hours of Wednesday, several thousand residents of the Serbian capital came to its center to welcome the first students, many of whom wore T-shirts with the slogan “Students are winning”, as well as the number three, which is also the number that the youth-backed list has on the ballot.
Meanwhile, Vucic, who has dominated Serbian politics for more than a decade either as prime minister or president, is first on the electoral list of his progressive party. Since the start of the student movement, the 56-year-old and his allies have accused the students of trying to launch a revolution funded by foreign powers. While the students hold the closing rally on Thursday evening, Vucic’s Progressive Party held its own on Wednesday evening in the southern city of Nis. “We will defeat them all on Sunday”, said Vucic during that rally.
