Serbia’s elections: 'Tracking fraud for sure had an impact on the results'

Serbia’s parliamentary elections on Sunday, October 25 delivered a political earthquake. The Student List movement challenged the Serbian Progressive Party (SNS) which had dominated Serbian politics for 14 years, led by outgoing president Aleksandar Vucic. 

The result marked a historic turning point: the Student List won 52.45 percent of the vote, securing 138 seats in the National Assembly, while the Aleksandar Vucic – United Serbia list received 39.2 , earning 103 seats.

The student movement emerged in the aftermath of the collapse of a railway station canopy in Novi Sad on November 1, 2024, a tragedy that claimed 16 lives and triggered nationwide protests against corruption. Initially non-partisan, the movement gradually gained widespread public support before deciding to field its own electoral list. Rather than running for office themselves, the students chose to nominate highly qualified individuals with no prior political experience, selected through a democratic process organised within universities.

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'We trained at least 16,000 people to become official controllers'

Petar Botoski, an agricultural student supporting the Student List, was in Novi Sad, a city located in the northern part of the country, when Aleksandar Vucic acknowledged the defeat of his party.

"It was the most challenging moment. We expected to win, but we did not know what would happen next. When the announcement came, I was in shock, everyone was cheering. At that time, the votes were still being transferred and being counted."

He explained that the student movement prevented much electoral fraud during the day. 

“The whole day we reported to authorities incidents such as the finding of parallel lists or the detection of carousel votes.”

Both are practices that can facilitate voter pressure or manipulation of the voting process. The parallel list is an unofficial list of voters used alongside the official register to manipulate or falsify voting records, while carousel voting is a form of electoral fraud in which a voter is given a ballot that has already been marked, takes it into the polling station and deposits it in the ballot box. The voter then brings the unmarked ballot they received as proof that he or she voted as “required”.

Petar Botoski goes on: 

“For a year and half, since we decided to propose a student list for the legislative elections, the student movement spent a lot of time and resources to create connections between people and to teach them how to prevent electoral fraud. 

We trained at least 16,000 people to become official controllers, two for each polling station. Then we trained about five people per polling station to be part of mobile teams. Their mission was to detect fraud outside the polling stations, such as the use of parallel lists, carousel vote, pay[ing] for voters and intimidations. [Tracking] fraud had for sure an impact on the results.”

Turnout reached 69 percent, with more than 4.4 million citizens casting their ballots. This represents a significant increase compared with the 55.5 percent turnout recorded in Serbia’s December 2023 parliamentary elections. 

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'We ensured that it was harder for them to fraud' 

Janko Sikosek, a member of the movement “Bikers with Students”, was among the volunteers that assisted in monitoring polling stations and helping to ensure a fair and transparent electoral process.

“I went out to vote early in the morning; the line was already forming before the polling station opened. At this moment, I felt very optimistic. People were looking at each other and smiling. The line was so long, I waited for an hour and a half to vote. 

Then I joined my mobile team. Only in my municipality (Vozdovac), there were 14 mobile teams, each one composed of 3 people.

We were there to record, to observe, to be present. We ensured that it was harder for them (SNS supporters) to fraud.

The job of my team of bikers was to help mobile teams that got in trouble. One mobile team discovered vote-buying headquarters in Ovca, in the north of Belgrade. A guy of the mobile team was hit on the head, the other two escaped, but their car was trapped. When we intervened, a couple of our guys got hurt. One received a strike on the head with a rock and the other had his arm broken. But we managed to get the mobile team out of there.”

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The incident involving Sikosek’s team was not isolated. Several other incidents were reported throughout election day, both inside and outside polling stations. For example, a group of masked men attacked election monitors from the Student List in Pancevo using pyrotechnic devices. Several of them were struck in the head.

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Moreover, an observer from CRTA, a Serbian democracy watchdog, was harassed by a group of people in Zemur. 

There were also reportedly some tensions inside the polling stations. 

Marko, a student in Novi Sad, was an official controller. He reported some tensions between the controllers from SNS and the ones from supporting the Student List. He said the SNS controllers tried to obstruct some people from voting, notably younger ones, pretending “they don't look like their ID photo". 

In some places, there were tensions about voting booths. Voting booths with curtains were introduced in Serbian elections for the first time in this election. According to the student supporters, this increases the risk of taking pictures of ballots. This is reportedly done by people who were paid to vote to support the ruling party or who received pressure over their vote because they work in public administrations.  

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According to CRTA, the most frequently observed irregularity was the photographing of ballot papers, reported at as many as 50 percent of the polling stations monitored. Voters take pictures of their ballots when they are paid for or when they receive pressure from their employers. 

An investigation published by Balkan Insight on October 20, based on more than 150 testimonies, describes pressure exerted on public sector employees to give their electoral support to the ruling party and to participate in its political rallies. 

A few days before the election, Rasa Nedeljkov, the program director of CRTA, told the FRANCE 24 Observers team about some worrying observations: 

“The CRTA found that 7 out of 18 lists that were going to be on the ballot were basically completely unexisting phantom fake lists. Through these fake lists, the ruling political party had the additional votes in the electoral commissions at local and national level.

We also noted that in the past 90 days, there were 14,100 new voters. This is something which is again strange and odd. We had addresses with a high number of completely new voters and multiple voters registered in one address.”

'The polling boards were filled with well-prepared representatives for the very first time'

Nedeljkov said at a press conference the day following the elections:

“Manipulation was prevented by the fact that a large number of Serbian citizens attached importance to election rule and got involved in the implementation and the control of election at polling stations. The polling boards were filled with well-prepared representatives for the very first time.”

'It was a historical moment'

Until Vucic announced his defeat, many student list supporters were quite worried about possible tensions and clashes with SNS supporters. 

Sikosek, from Bikers with Students, reported his concerns a few minutes before the announcement: 

“When the dark came, the police were fortifying the center of the city, there were some incidents. We were thinking that he is going to come out and say that he won. Suddenly he said that he got defeated. We were all euphoric. It was a historical moment.”

Botoski, the agricultural student, said that students will continue to monitor their elected representatives: 

“We expect that the people we’ve chosen to represent the student list in parliament will do their job with care and dignity. We expect them to work on reforming the institutions and eradicate corruption from this country.”

In less than two years, Serbian students built a grassroots movement that won widespread public support and defeated a party that had been in power for 14 years. Through peaceful and democratic means, they turned public discontent into political change. The next challenge for the students and their supporters will be the presidential elections which will be held in December 2026.