Aleksandar Vučić, Serbia's long-standing right-wing populist leader, conceded defeat in snap parliamentary elections on Sunday to a student-led anti-corruption movement. "It is clear that we have lost these elections," Vučić said as preliminary results showed record turnout favoring the opposition.
The Student List, an unstructured protest movement with no established leadership, fielded candidates including doctors, actors, academics and sports personalities across Serbia's 250-member parliament. The group's lead candidate, Ilija Srdanović, told BBC Serbian: "This will be a free state," and pledged to "free the country from tyranny."
Celebrations erupted across Serbia after Vučić's concession. Streets in Belgrade and Novi Sad filled with crowds dancing, chanting "victory," honking car horns and setting off fireworks. "Serbia is free," one student told the BBC. "It's a miracle." Selena Lebovic told Reuters: "We are all crying, and what to say. We couldn't believe that it would be so easy."
The snap elections followed two years of protests triggered by the collapse of a train station canopy in Novi Sad that killed 16 people. That disaster became a symbol of systemic corruption and negligence under Vučić's rule. The Student List campaigned on a platform that included purging officials who broke rules, cracking down on protesters, stopping party loyalists from leading state enterprises, and removing political control from the public broadcaster.
Vučić, who had completed two terms as president and could not seek a third, led his Serbian Progressive Party with hopes of returning to the prime minister post he left in 2017. He and the SNS party have repeatedly denied corruption allegations. Exit polls showed turnout reached 64.9% by 18:00 local time, a record high. Long queues formed at polling stations across Serbia and at Serbian communities abroad, including in Paris, Munich, Los Angeles and Chicago.
Student List candidate Radomir Saicic said during celebrations that Serbians had demonstrated that "no obstacle was greater than their will" and that "no force can forever overpower a people who have decided to take their destiny into their own hands," according to Reuters.