How a student-led movement born from the Novi Sad canopy collapse ended Aleksandar Vučić's 14 years of dominance

On the night the votes were counted, crowds filled the town centres of Belgrade, Novi Sad and Niš, and gathered outside Student List headquarters. The students posted a short declaration on social media: "Serbia is free." Aleksandar Vučić, who had dominated Serbian politics for 14 years, had seen his Serbian Progressive Party (SNS) fail in an election that came to be treated as a referendum on the country's future.

The most telling image came in central Belgrade. Ćaciland, a pro-Vučić tent camp set up 18 months earlier at Pioneers Park in front of parliament, came down. Metal fences were pulled apart as people shouted "Vučić is leaving."

The movement began with a death toll. On 1 November 2024, a concrete canopy collapsed outside the train station in Novi Sad, Serbia's second-largest city, and killed 16 people. Many Serbians saw the disaster as a symbol of corruption. Critics tied the station's fatally flawed renovation to a president who had closely linked himself to the project. Helena Ivanov of the Henry Jackson Society said the collapse "served as the last straw." She described it as an emotional spark that set off a national campaign of marches and events, reaching people in a way no opposition party had managed.

What began as weekly student protests demanding justice, on campuses and in city streets, spread well beyond universities. Farmers, actors and judges joined, often through local initiatives. By January 2025 the prime minister had resigned, in the words used at the time, to defuse tensions. In March 2025 Belgrade saw the largest anti-government protest in Serbia's history. With no formal leaders, the students organised through assemblies known as plenums. When Vučić called snap elections last month, Ivanov said, they were ready, having turned emotional momentum into an organisation and trained people to protect fairness at polling stations. Gordana Delić of the German Marshall Fund of the US, who called the vote in effect a referendum, summed up its message as the rule of law, not rule by the law.

Vučić's tone toward the protesters shifted. At first he called them well-intentioned. Before the vote he accused them of trying to bring down Serbia. Even as he conceded on Sunday night, he alleged, without evidence, that they were backed by unnamed "European countries and the American deep state." He told supporters the students had destroyed two years of life in Serbia and would be defeated "faster than they think."

The students themselves did not stand. The list, called Student List-Students Win, fielded candidates for all 250 parliamentary seats, but none was a student. It was a calculated choice, since voters were unlikely to back candidates with little life experience. The lead candidate was Ilija Srdanović, a cardiologist and professor in Novi Sad, who joined last week's march towards Belgrade and told the BBC that "the energy is unstoppable." He is not widely seen as a likely prime minister.

At least 135 people on the list are thought to have won seats. They include former basketball star Dejan Bodiroga, actor Tihomir Stanić, opera singer Nikola Mikić, former National Bank of Serbia governor Dejan Šoškić, and many professors. Šoškić's name has been mentioned for the top post. He has spoken about economic reforms and has been widely criticised in pro-government media.

The movement's 11-point programme now falls to these MPs. It includes a police unit to arrest those responsible for corruption, and a purge of interior ministry officials who broke rules on handling protesters or who have links to organised crime. It also calls for reform of the media landscape, freeing the public broadcaster from political control, and an end to installing party loyalists at the head of public enterprises. Vučić and the SNS deny corruption and deny seeking to influence the media.

Because the students made the promises, they will face pressure to see them kept, even though they hold no seats. They say the citizens they chose have been entrusted with carrying part of the street struggle of the past year into the institutions. What to watch next is whether those MPs deliver on corruption, police and media reform, and how Vučić's claims of foreign backing shape the next phase.