Serbia's ruling party concedes election defeat after 14 years in power

Serbia's governing Progressive Party lost its grip on power for the first time since 2012 on Sunday, after a political movement grown out of two years of student-led anti-corruption protests won a parliamentary majority in a snap election. Aleksandar Vučić, who resigned the presidency in September to lead his party's campaign for prime minister, conceded before midnight. "It is clear that we have lost these elections," he told reporters, according to Al Jazeera's election-night report.

A decisive result

Preliminary figures released Monday by Serbia's Republic Election Commission, with 8,077 of 8,392 polling stations counted, gave the Student List 52.54% of the vote, enough for a projected 140 of the 250 seats in the National Assembly — an outright majority on its own. Vučić's list, running under the banner United Serbia, took 39.29% and roughly 103 seats, according to Al Jazeera's follow-up reporting. The remaining handful of seats went to minority-list parties representing Vojvodina's Hungarian community, an Albanian bloc, and two smaller Bosniak lists.

Turnout reached 68.78%, the Election Commission said — the highest in more than three decades, since before Yugoslavia's breakup in the early 1990s. About 6.5 million Serbians were eligible to vote across 18 competing electoral lists.

From a collapsed canopy to a ballot box

The movement that unseated Vučić's Progressives traces directly to a railway-station disaster. In November 2024, a concrete canopy collapsed at the newly renovated train station in Novi Sad, killing 16 people. Investigators and critics blamed shoddy renovation work tied to politically connected contractors, and the government's response triggered sustained protests, including mass marches that drew hundreds of thousands of people through 2025. Then-prime minister Miloš Vučević resigned in January 2025 under the pressure.

What began as demands for accountability widened into a broader movement against alleged corruption and media control under Vučić, who has denied the accusations. University students organized blockades and marches for nearly two years before deciding to contest power directly, forming the Student List — officially "Student List – Students Win" — with candidates drawn from medicine, teaching, farming and other professions rather than career politics. Some established opposition parties stood aside and backed the students rather than fielding their own candidates. Cardiologist and University of Novi Sad medical professor Ilija Srdanović led the list and is widely seen as the most likely candidate for prime minister, though the movement never formally named one during the campaign.

Vučić himself resigned as president on September 27 so he could run for the premiership, handing presidential duties on an acting basis to Ana Brnabić, the outgoing parliament speaker. Serbia remains a candidate for European Union membership, a status it has held since 2012, and the government in Belgrade had set a goal of completing its EU accession obligations by the end of 2026, according to Serbia's Ministry of European Integration.

Irregularities and a tense count

Election monitors flagged problems even as the vote proceeded. The Centre for Research, Transparency and Accountability said it observed pressure on voters or poll workers at nearly a third of the 500 polling stations it monitored, along with failures to protect ballot secrecy. A separate monitor, the Centre for Free Elections and Democracy, logged roughly 260 reports of potential irregularities by late afternoon, including photographing of marked ballots, group voting, and disputes over identity checks, Al Jazeera reported. Serbia's parliament has also hosted international scrutiny of the vote: the National Assembly confirmed meetings with an OSCE/ODIHR observer delegation ahead of the election.

Despite the friction, the result was not close enough to be in doubt. Celebrations broke out across Belgrade as the scale of the defeat became clear.

• Student List: roughly 52.5% of the vote, about 140 of 250 seats
• United Serbia (Vučić's list): roughly 39.3% of the vote, about 103 seats
• Turnout: 68.78%, a three-decade high
• Presidential election must be called by Brnabić no later than December 27

"Students won, and with them also a hope that Serbia can be a country of justice, freedom and dignity."

That was the reaction of Radomir Saičić, a Student List candidate, cited by Al Jazeera. A voter identified as Jana Vasić told the outlet the result meant "freedom from a dictatorship that has lasted for 12 years," while a Belgrade resident, Dragana Kovečević, told the Associated Press she was thrilled that "everyone greets with smiles." Crowds that filled Belgrade's main roads overnight also tore down tents at a central city park where Vučić loyalists had camped for more than a year; riot police were deployed near the election commission's headquarters as city prosecutors urged calm.

What happens next

Under Serbian election law, the newly elected National Assembly must be formally constituted within 30 days of the final results being certified, with a government then required to form within 90 days after that — though the Student List's outright majority means Serbia is unlikely to see the protracted coalition haggling that has followed closer past elections. It remains unclear who will hold the interior, justice and finance portfolios in a new cabinet.

Separately, Brnabić must call a presidential election to replace Vučić no later than December 27, three months after his resignation took effect; the presidency is a largely ceremonial post under Serbia's constitution. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen congratulated the Student List and pledged EU support for reforms on the rule of law, media freedom and anti-corruption, Al Jazeera reported, while EU Enlargement Commissioner Marta Kos said earlier in October that further progress on Serbia's accession bid rests with whoever forms the next government.