Serbia’s student list revolution and lessons for Kenya’s Gen Z

Between 13 and 19 October, the monitoring service Delta Watchfloor counted 1,072 demonstrations, strikes, riots and other mass gatherings worldwide. From Paris, I watched 550,000 people march on October 17, according to the Interior ministry, many of them school pupils. In Serbia, a protest movement has now turned its organising into a parliamentary majority. 

On October 25, the students who have marched since a railway canopy in Novi Sad collapsed and killed 16 people in November 2024 defeated Aleksandar Vučić’s party with about 53 per cent of the vote and roughly 140 of 250 seats, according to preliminary results. They did it without a single legacy politician at their head. Kenya’s Gen Z has been protesting since June 2024, faces a general election on August 10 , 2027, and has yet to build the machinery that made Belgrade possible.