Student List wins Serbian parliament

Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić lost his grip on power last Sunday after a student-led movement won a landslide victory in parliamentary elections.

The Student List captured 140 of the 250 seats in the Serbian parliament. This figure matches the number of seats won by Péter Magyar’s Tisza party in the 199-seat Hungarian parliament last April. Turnout in Serbia reached 69%, while turnout in Hungary was 79% in April.

Vučić and Orbán had served as leaders for 14 and 16 years, respectively. Both men had built business empires that overlapped between their nations. They met in Subotica, a town in northern Serbia, last November. During that visit, they discussed the planned Hungarian purchase of Serbia’s Niš oil refinery. The two leaders also shared alliances with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping.

The opposition movements in both countries relied heavily on technology and volunteer monitoring. The DE civic action group from Hungary sent 70 monitors to Serbia last weekend. These observers worked alongside Serbian student representatives in the northern province of Vojvodina. Hungarian volunteers had held workshops with Serbian students during the summer to share methods for detecting fraud.

A key strategy involved identifying polling districts where previous results suggested voter intimidation or chain voting. Péter Klemm, a student activist from Subotica, said masked groups of Vučić supporters gathered near voting stations around 16:00 on election day. Klemm reported that mobile teams filmed the activity to deter fraud. This effort was combined with 20 to 30 stationary volunteers at threatened locations.

Vučić admitted defeat at 21:30 on Sunday evening. Orbán had conceded at the same time last April. Reports suggest Vučić called Orbán twice that night to seek advice. Vučić denies speaking to Orbán before his announcement but confirms a later conversation at 23:15. Orbán declined to comment on the calls.

The Student List will now hold a majority in the legislature. Ilija Srdanović, the head of the movement, stated that the Hungarian result showed their approach was correct. Magyar called Srdanović to congratulate him directly on election night. Both ousted leaders may face prosecution for corruption and abuse of power. Serbia’s JTOK and Hungary’s NVVH prosecutors hold similar powers. The collapse of the Novi Sad railway station canopy in 2024, which killed 16 people, served as a catalyst for the Serbian student movement.