Serbia’s student movement took its two-year protest campaign into a final mass rally on Thursday, filling Belgrade’s Slavija Square and surrounding streets three days before a snap parliamentary election that pits the Student List against President Aleksandar Vucic’s Serbian Progressive Party. The rally, called Victory Calling, capped multi-day marches in which students walked to the capital from across the country, and candidates promised a judiciary and prosecution free of political pressure and education and healthcare equally available to all.
The movement began after a concrete canopy collapsed at Novi Sad railway station in November 2024, killing 16 people. Protesters blamed corruption and failures in construction oversight, and the campaign widened from demands for a transparent investigation into a nationwide anti-corruption movement calling for early elections and institutional reform. The list operates without a single leader and has avoided detailed foreign policy commitments in order to hold together left, centre and right-leaning voters.
Vucic held his own closing rally at a sports hall in New Belgrade the same evening. Analysts cited in the coverage say a student-led government would face immediate domestic priorities before foreign policy, though its candidates have taken a hard line on Kosovo, proposed reviewing agreements reached under EU auspices and floated a referendum on EU membership within six months of taking office. Moscow has portrayed the protests as a Western-backed colour revolution, while the United States Congress has voiced concern about democratic standards and Serbia’s ties with Russia.
What is at stake economically is the direction of a candidate country whose EU accession has stalled over rule of law concerns and limited alignment with EU sanctions, including those against Russia. A change of government would not automatically transform that position, but democratic reform, judicial independence and anti-corruption enforcement are the conditions Brussels has set for reviving the process. Polls close on Sunday, October 25.