The Canada Brief

World · 12 d ago

Protest at Slavija Square, Belgrade

Serbia's student movement hopes to turn protest into an election win

Oct

25

Sunday

Serbia

Serbia votes on Sunday in a snap parliamentary election for all 250 seats in the National Assembly.

The protests began after a concrete canopy collapsed at a railway station in Novi Sad in November 2024, killing 16 people. They grew into a nationwide movement against alleged corruption.

What we know

  • Vučić resigned the presidency to run for prime minister
  • The Student List fields 250 candidates, many academics

Not yet

  • Who leads: no reliable independent polling
  • Whether both camps accept the result

Aleksandar Vučić's Serbian Progressive Party has governed for more than 14 years. The Student List, backed by the movement, runs on fighting corruption.

Vučić accuses the movement of being a foreign-funded coup attempt. A monitoring group counted more than 100 violent incidents during the campaign.