From protests to election, Serbia's students mount a challenge to populist strongman Vucic

Serbia 's university students have led mass anti-corruption protests for nearly two years. Now they have a more ambitious goal: to beat the Balkan country's powerful populist leader Aleksandar Vucic in the early parliamentary election this weekend.

The former authoritarian president is looking to return as prime minister after the Oct. 25 vote and extend his right-wing party's 14-year rule. Serbia's youth movement, which already rattled the populists during the protests, is the only one standing in the way.

The stakes are high and so are tensions. Vucic's Serbian Progressive Party, or SNS, and the youth-backed Students' List are believed to be running close, making the outcome uncertain and fueling fears of possible violence.

After marching and cycling through Serbia, the students' final campaign rally in Belgrade is expected to draw tens of thousands of people on Thursday.

Here is a look at how the students became a key player in the election:

Serbian students say they want to change an unjust society

Unlike high school students in France who are rallying for better education, Serbia's student movement started out as a struggle for justice after a train station tragedy in the country's north killed 16 people in November 2024.

The students' call for accountability for the deaths, which they blamed on rampant corruption, found widespread support. Protests spread, forcing a government collapse and rattling Vucic.

Psychology professor Aleksandar Baucal says the students' drive is rooted in the fact that “their generation grew up in a society that is deeply unjust.”

“They realized that if they gave up, they would give up on their lives,” said Baucal, an early supporter of the students who is now on their election ticket. “This has made them an opponent who can’t give up.”

Two years on, the students have become a well-organized political force, resilient to government crackdowns and widely popular among Serbia’s 6.4 million voters. The students claimed on Sunday that their meetings are being monitored and that authorities plan new detentions.

The student movement is leaderless but united

Their secret, the students say, lies in the movement's democratic ways and solidarity that is completely opposite to Vucic's populist dominance.

“It has been important for us to dismantle the personality cult," Vukasin Djinovic, a student from the northern city of Novi Sad, told The Associated Press.

The students support "democracy, tolerance and respect for everyone's opinion,” he added.

In practice, the movement has no leader or leaders, not even a spokesperson. They say they are all equal, regardless of what part of Serbia they come from or what faculty they are studying at. All important decisions and plans are discussed and voted on in a myriad of so-called plenums, or faculty assemblies, across the country.

It's a stark contrast to Vucic’s one-man rule during his tenures as either president or prime minister over the past 12 years. Acting as an anonymous movement, the students have proven an elusive and slippery adversary for the veteran politician who easily outmaneuvered his opponents in the past.

Vucic has pushed hard against the students with detentions, accusations of anti-state activities and alleged surveillance.

But supporters such as Baucal believe all that pressure “gave the students additional strength and resilience.”

How the students came up with an election ticket and a plan

The students chose their Students' List election ticket through proposals and a vetting process that took place at all universities across the country.

Their candidates for the 250-member Parliament include a few familiar faces, along with little-known teachers, professors, experts, athletes, farmers and artists.

The idea, Djinovic said, is to change a government that he said is “plagued by corruption and mafia,” and rebuild democratic institutions, including independent media, so that a free and fair election can be held in the future.

The Students' List has also come up with plans for an economic and social revival.

“We are afraid but we managed to overcome that because we know what we are fighting for,” he said. “All the violence and repression from the regime ... is actually a symbol of their fear.”

Much is uncertain ahead of Sunday's vote

Vucic has campaigned fiercely since he resigned as president last month to pursue his bid to become prime minister again. He has accused his opponents of plans to steal the populists' election victory even as his ruling party controls the election authorities and the judiciary.

Vucic's SNS party has been accused in the past of election irregularities, including pressuring and bribing voters and inflating voter lists — accusations it has denied.

International election monitors and the European Union have expressed concern about the safety and fairness of the upcoming vote. Analysts fear that both sides could claim victory on election night, and that Vucic would not concede defeat if he loses.

“Students have shown clearly that they are the force, both as a generation and politically, that can bring about a change,” said Aleksandra Krstic, from Belgrade's Faculty of Political Sciences. “That is what gave people hope, that it can be different after 14 years of the Serbian Progressive Party regime."