Student-backed election winners demand mass resignations in Serbia

The Student List won the election on Sunday, ousting Vučić's Serbian Progressive Party from power. The handover of power is expected to take weeks, and the movement has expressed concern that evidence of possible wrongdoing could be destroyed in that time.

The student movement emerged from protests following the fatal collapse of a railway station canopy that killed 16 people in November 2024 in Novi Sad, Serbia's second-largest town. Their desire was to bring those responsible to justice and investigate widespread corruption claims blamed for one of the most tragic events in Serbia's modern history.

The purge of Vučić loyalists has already begun at Serbia's state broadcaster RTS, where director Manja Grčić has stepped down. Newly elected MP Mirjana Nikolić said Serbian citizens had the right to truthful information and that RTS had served the interests of the government for years. The new MPs have also set their sights on replacing the head of Telekom Srbija, Vladimir Lučić.

Vučić loyalist Ana Brnabić, who is currently Serbia's acting president, accused her opponents of choosing "revolutionary justice, not rule of law" and of aiming to shut down "all of the media they dislike".

Former central bank governor Dejan Šoškić, one of the next government's best-known MPs, argued that key reforms need to be in place fast. "In the first six months, I would like to see the media scene liberated, fighting against corruption on the way, the institutions operating as prescribed by laws and a lustration law introduced," he said. By lustration, he means banning from public office members of the Vučić government or party apparatus who are found to have violated the rights of Serbians.

Strahinja Subotić of the Belgrade-based European Policy Centre warned that such a purge will take time, as all of Serbia's main pillars of authority have been held by Vučić and his party for so long. He believes the new administration will have to "build bridges to the segments that have been operating well in the past".

All 141 successful candidates were chosen by students from universities across Serbia through a lengthy, secretive and carefully crafted process. The movement's political agenda took months for a highly diverse group of students to agree to. Radomir Saičić, a professor of organic chemistry at the University of Belgrade and another prominent figure on the Student List, told the BBC: "While the practical mechanisms will be developed on the go, the new MPs will stick to the students' 1200-page long and detailed plan."

Serbia maintains close relations with Russia and is a candidate to join the European Union, balancing its foreign policy between the bloc and its eastern partners. Belgrade has not imposed sanctions on Moscow since its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. That does not mean the students plan to change course, and changing Serbia's foreign policy may not be high on their list. “Serbia had its own experience with sanctions in the 1990s and we know that they mostly harm ordinary people and do not affect policies of a state,” said Dejan Šoškić.

Presidential elections are due to take place in December. Aleksandar Vučić is legally barred from running for a third term as president, but he has promised that his party will fight back: "We will beat them much faster than they can even imagine."