A large rally of opposition supporters took place in the Serbian capital on 22 October. According to a preliminary estimate, about 150,000 people took to the streets of Belgrade to protest. Their aim is to bring an end to the 14-year rule of the right-wing populist Serbian Progressive Party (SNS), led by the current outgoing president Aleksandar Vučić, The Guardian reports.
Supporters of a change of government have created the Student List — a slate of 250 opposition candidates with no designated leader. It is called “student” because students form the core of the protest movement, although people of different ages and occupations have also joined.
“I came to support the Student List because young people have finally given hope that it is possible to live in a normal country. For the first time in my life, it seemed to me that this is possible,” 47-year-old Marija Nedeljković Radić told journalists.
Serbia’s parliamentary elections are scheduled for this Sunday, 25 October. Vučić announced his resignation from the presidency last month in order to run for prime minister.
“We are bringing to an end 14 years of humiliation, chaos and betrayal, and decades in which personal and party interests were placed above yours,” university professor Jugoslav Gasić, one of the Student List candidates, told protesters.
Student protests in Serbia have taken place before: in 2024, after a tragedy at a newly renovated railway station that resulted in the deaths of 16 people. The authorities were accused of corruption that led to the disaster. The anti-corruption movement led by students grew out of demands for a transparent investigation into the accident and calls for snap elections. Those protests were the largest since the overthrow of Slobodan Milošević in 2000.
Vučić accuses the current student movement of being funded from abroad and attempting a coup.