Political earthquake in Serbia: The end of the Vucic Era and the rise of the student list

This is not simply a change of government. It is the collapse of a political order that has defined Serbia since 2012. Serbia's elections have produced a result that will almost certainly be remembered as one of the biggest political turning points in the country's modern history. The Student List has won a landslide victory and, with 140 of the 250 seats in parliament, secured an outright majority. The Serbian Progressive Party (SNS), until now the country's dominant political force, has won 104 seats and, for the first time in almost 14 years, is heading into opposition. This is not simply a change of government. It is the collapse of a political order that has defined Serbia since 2012. Since the Serbian Progressive Party came to power, Aleksandar Vučić and his political bloc have exercised almost complete dominance over Serbia's political life. The SNS controlled the executive branch, enjoyed large parliamentary majorities, dominated local politics and, through an extensive network of political and institutional alliances, largely determined the boundaries of political competition in the country. For more than a decade, opposition parties repeatedly tried to break that dominance, but without success. The paradox of this political earthquake is that the SNS was not defeated by the traditional opposition. It was defeated by students. The Student List has transformed itself from a movement born out of months of student protests into the country's dominant political force, turning what began as a social revolt into electoral legitimacy. In doing so, the student movement has achieved what Serbia's traditional opposition parties failed to accomplish for more than a decade: it has directly broken Aleksandar Vučić's political monopoly. The result should therefore also be understood as a referendum on 14 years of SNS rule. A large part of the electorate clearly did not vote simply for a particular group of candidates or a particular programme. They voted against a model of government that had become synonymous with personalised politics, a strong concentration of power, political control over institutions, media and deep social polarisation. The student movement succeeded in bringing together different forms of dissatisfaction – from demands for institutional accountability and the rule of law to broader calls for political change. The fact that no other small party managed to cross the three-per-cent electoral threshold makes the result even more dramatic. Serbia's traditional party landscape has effectively disappeared between two dominant political forces: the Student List and the SNS. This is another indication of the scale of the earthquake. Parties that had been a permanent part of Serbia's parliamentary life have been wiped out of the legislature. At the same time, the Student List has not merely emerged as the largest political force; it has won enough seats to govern alone. The collapse of the old political geography of minorities An equally important signal has come from Serbia's ethnic minority communities. For almost a decade and a half, most minority political parties were among Aleksandar Vučić's most reliable political allies. The major exception was the Albanian political bloc, which never became part of Vučić's governing coalition. These elections, however, suggest that even this traditional political geography has been seriously disrupted. The Alliance of Vojvodina Hungarians (SVM), a long-standing political partner of the SNS, won only three of the five parliamentary seats it could potentially have secured. This is more than a simple decline in parliamentary representation. It points to a significant shift in political sentiment among Vojvodina's Hungarian community and suggests that a substantial share of Hungarian voters may have supported the Student List rather than Vučić's traditional ally. A similar signal has come from the Bosniak community. Only two Bosniak representatives will enter parliament – one from a political group that previously cooperated with Vučić and one from a movement that has traditionally remained in opposition. Here too, the previous pattern of political loyalty has been seriously disrupted. The new parliament will also include two representatives of the Albanian coalition, a political community that has never collaborated with Vučić's government. The old system of political alliances has therefore been fundamentally weakened. For years, Vučić's political system relied partly on his ability to build a broad network of allies around the SNS – from minority parties to smaller coalition partners. That network has now either disappeared or been reduced to a minimum. From Belgrade to Brussels: an international dimension The scale of the political change was also reflected in the first international reactions to the result. The Student List received congratulations from senior European figures, including Antonio Kosta, head of the European Council, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and European Commissioner for Enlargement Marta Kos. Congratulations also came from other European politicians, including Péter Magyar, the Hungarian prime minister. Those reactions carry considerable political weight. For years, Brussels has closely followed Serbia's domestic political situation, particularly issues concerning the rule of law, the functioning of institutions, electoral conditions and the relationship between the government, opposition and civil society. The fact that senior European officials were among those congratulating the election winner therefore sends a significant signal that the Student List's victory is being viewed as the possible opening of a new political chapter in Serbia's relationship with the European Union. The reaction from Péter Magyar is particularly symbolic. Hungary has been one of Aleksandar Vučić's closest political allies within the European Union under the rule of Viktor Orban who was defeted himself in Hungary i April this year. A new political reality in Serbia could therefore have consequences not only for Belgrade's relations with Budapest, but also for the wider political balance in the region. In other words, the election result has already moved beyond being solely a domestic Serbian affair. It has acquired a clear European dimension. Vučić warns of sanctions against Russia and investor uncertainty Aleksandar Vučić's first reaction to the result also pointed to the potentially profound geopolitical and economic consequences of the change of government. Vučić said he expected Serbia, under the new authorities, to introduce sanctions against Russia. Such a move would represent a major foreign-policy shift for Serbia, which has maintained close political, economic and historical ties with Moscow while simultaneously pursuing EU membership. The outgoing president also warned that the election result could send a negative signal to investors. That warning is significant because attracting foreign investment has been one of the central pillars of Vučić's economic policy. During his years in power, the government repeatedly presented Serbia as a stable and increasingly attractive destination for foreign companies and investors. A transition to a completely new political establishment could therefore raise questions among investors about political stability, economic policy, regulation and Serbia's future foreign-policy orientation. At the same time, the Student List will inherit an economy deeply integrated with both the European market and international investment flows. Its challenge will be to demonstrate that political change does not mean economic instability. A movement now facing the burden of governing For the people behind the Student List, however, the significance of the election is about much more than simply replacing one government with another. Dejan Šoškić, a professor at the Faculty of Economics and one of the prominent figures associated with the Student List, described the result in explicitly historic terms. “I am proud of the students who have brought us to this historic situation in which Serbia has freed itself, in which Serbia has a chance to become a democratic and free society again,” Šoškić said. The statement captures the broader meaning that the new governing camp attaches to the election. Candidate of the “Student List – Students Are Winning”, academician and professor Radomir Saičić, said after the election victory was declared that the citizens of Serbia had demonstrated courage and a willingness for change, stressing that “serious work and the building of a new Serbia begin tomorrow.” But winning an election is one thing; governing a country is another. The Student List now faces the much harder task of transforming a protest movement into a functioning political establishment. It will have to form a government, rebuild institutions, establish its own political structures and formulate policies on the economy, foreign affairs, the European integration process, social policy and the rule of law. Its victory is historic. But historic victories often mark the beginning of the most difficult phase. For the SNS, meanwhile, this is much more than simply losing a government. For the first time since 2012, the party will have to operate without control of the state apparatus and without the political privilege of organising Serbia's political life around itself. It will be the first real test of how strong the SNS is as a political organisation when it no longer controls the executive branch and when Aleksandar Vučić is no longer at the centre of government. The political consequences could extend far beyond the immediate parliamentary arithmetic. For years, Serbian politics revolved around one dominant question: whether a political force could challenge Vučić. The answer has now been given. It can. And the force that did it was not one of the established opposition parties, but a student movement that only recently existed outside the traditional political system. That is the real significance of these elections. The traditional opposition has virtually disappeared from parliament. The minority parties that once formed part of Vučić's political support structure have lost influence. The SNS has been pushed into opposition after almost 14 years of uninterrupted dominance.