Serbia votes in snap election that tests Vucic after two years of protest

BELGRADE — Serbians go to the polls on Sunday in a snap parliamentary election that has become the most direct test yet of a protest movement born nearly two years ago out of a deadly railway-station disaster, with independent surveys showing President Aleksandar Vucic's ruling party locked in an unusually close contest against a list of candidates fielded by the students who led that movement.

The vote, scheduled for October 25, was called after Vucic dissolved the National Assembly and then resigned the presidency on September 27, stepping down roughly seven months before his second and constitutionally final term was due to end. The maneuver allows him to lead his Serbian Progressive Party, known as the SNS, into the parliamentary race as an ordinary candidate and, should the party secure a majority, return to power as prime minister rather than head of state.

Facing him is "Students Win," a list organized by the student-led movement that has staged some of the largest and most sustained street protests in Serbia's post-communist history. The movement traces its origins to November 1, 2024, when a concrete canopy collapsed at the renovated railway station in Novi Sad, killing 16 people, including children, and triggering accusations that corruption and shoddy, politically connected construction work were to blame. More than a year and a half later, no one has been convicted over the collapse, a grievance that has remained at the center of the students' campaign.

A race too close to call

Opinion polling in the campaign's final days has diverged sharply, underscoring both the contest's volatility and the depth of distrust in Serbia's polling industry. A survey by Ipsos published on October 22 put the SNS-led coalition at 47.4 percent against 40.0 percent for the Student List, while a poll from the NSPM institute released two days earlier showed the opposite lead, with the Student List at 44.4 percent against 42.7 percent for Vucic's coalition. An earlier survey conducted in July by the respected monitoring group CRTA had shown the students further ahead, at nearly 45 percent to the SNS's roughly 36 percent.

Opposition-aligned media and independent analysts have accused Ipsos and a second pro-government-leaning pollster, Faktor Plus, of skewing their samples in the ruling party's favor, charges those firms deny. The spread between surveys — effectively the difference between a comfortable governing majority and a hung parliament — has left the outcome genuinely uncertain heading into election day, a rarity in a country Vucic's SNS has dominated since 2012.

Serbia's Republic Election Commission, which has overseen preparations, says 6,450,523 voters are registered across more than 8,200 polling stations, with additional sites still being finalized for citizens abroad and in detention facilities. Twelve electoral lists remain in contention after one was withdrawn during the candidacy period, the commission has said.

Two years of protest, one election

The scale of the movement challenging Vucic has few recent parallels in Europe. Student-led demonstrations swelled through the winter and spring of 2025, drawing crowds the independent Archive of Public Gatherings estimated at well over 100,000 in Belgrade at their peak, and the first anniversary of the Novi Sad collapse last November again brought tens of thousands into the streets, followed by clashes between protesters and police. Demonstrators have demanded accountability for the collapse, the release of what they say is evidence of politically directed pressure on prosecutors, and early elections — a demand Vucic resisted for more than a year before relenting this autumn.

The students' list is headed publicly by Ilija Srdjanovic, a physician who has emerged as its lead spokesman, though organizers have been careful to avoid presenting a single leader, insisting instead that the list has "more than one candidate for every position" in a prospective government. Srdjanovic has said the movement has stationed monitors at every polling station in the country and is prepared to contest the result if it suspects fraud.

"We must not turn our backs on Serbia and its citizens who want to live in a free, democratic and European country," European Commissioner for Enlargement Marta Kos told the European Parliament ahead of the vote.

Who is affected, and what Brussels is watching

The immediate stakes are domestic: control of a 250-seat National Assembly, and with it the shape of Serbia's next government. But the election also carries weight well beyond Serbia's borders. As a candidate for European Union membership since 2012, Serbia's accession talks have stalled for years, and Kos has told lawmakers in Brussels that Belgrade "will have to deliver more" on judicial independence, media freedom and electoral conditions before negotiations advance further. Serbia was again left out of a round of EU accession conferences this year after member states failed to reach consensus on opening a new chapter in the talks.

A win for the SNS would likely preserve the political and economic status quo that has defined Vucic's 13 years in power, including close ties with both Brussels and, more controversially among Western officials, with Moscow and Beijing. A strong showing for the Student List, by contrast, would mark the first serious parliamentary foothold for a movement that has so far operated almost entirely outside formal politics, and could reopen questions over Serbia's foreign-policy orientation at a moment when the wider Western Balkans region remains a focus of EU and Russian competition for influence.

Ordinary voters, meanwhile, are weighing the vote against a backdrop of economic frustration and, for many, two years of disruption from blockades and demonstrations that have periodically closed roads, bridges and university faculties across the country. Businesses in Belgrade and Novi Sad have reported losses tied to the protests, even as polling suggests many citizens, including some who have not joined demonstrations themselves, back the movement's core demand for accountability over the Novi Sad deaths.

International monitors flag a tense campaign

The vote is being watched unusually closely from abroad. The Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe's human rights office, ODIHR, deployed a full-scale election observation mission after a needs-assessment report in July described a "highly polarized political and social environment" and warned of "concerns about political tensions ... and the risk of post-election disputes and violence." The mission, led by Eoghan Murphy, has fielded roughly 30 long-term observers since late September and requested some 300 short-term observers for election day itself.

A delegation from the Council of Europe's Parliamentary Assembly, led by Piero Fassino, carried out a pre-electoral visit in mid-October, and the European Parliament has sent a seven-member delegation led by Austrian MEP Andreas Schieder to observe voting alongside the OSCE mission. That delegation's presence briefly became a diplomatic flashpoint: Serbian National Assembly Speaker Ana Brnabic formally protested its composition to the European Parliament's president, objecting in particular to Schieder's selection as head, though the Parliament rejected the complaint, saying the delegation reflected its political diversity and would observe according to standard international methodology.

What comes next

Polling stations open Sunday morning and are expected to close in the evening, with preliminary results typically available within hours given Serbia's established count-reporting infrastructure, though a razor-thin margin could delay a clear outcome for days. If no single list wins a majority of the assembly's 250 seats, Serbia faces the prospect of prolonged coalition talks in a legislature more fractured than at any point since Vucic's party first took power.

Whatever the result, both sides have signaled they do not expect a quiet aftermath. Student List organizers have pledged to contest any outcome they view as fraudulent, while Vucic has accused the protest movement and unnamed foreign backers of trying to seize power outside the ballot box, allegations he has not substantiated. The OSCE and European Parliament delegations are due to issue preliminary findings within a day of the vote, assessments that will shape how the election — and Serbia's uncertain path toward the European Union — is judged internationally in the days that follow.