Thousands gather at final student-led rally ahead of Serbia election

The student movement aims to end Vucic’s ۱۴ years of rule at Sunday’s vote, as he holds a rival rally across town.

Tens of thousands of supporters of Serbia’s student-led opposition movement have gathered in central Belgrade for their final rally ahead of a parliamentary election in which they hope to oust veteran leader Aleksandar Vucic’s party.

The crowds filled the capital on Thursday, as Vucic held a rival rally at a sports hall across town.

Waving “students are winning” flags and blowing whistles, the marchers converged on Slavija Square, the site of some of the movement’s biggest protests.

Sunday’s vote is seen as a chance to end Vucic’s longtime rule.

“Really, for the first time in my life, I believe that it is possible,” said Marija Nedeljkovic Radic, ۴۷, who said young people had given her hope of “a normal country“.

The vote follows nearly two years of student-led protests triggered by the ۲۰۲۴ collapse of a canopy at a newly renovated railway station in Novi Sad that killed ۱۶ people.

The Student List, a leaderless movement of student-backed candidates, is seeking to unseat Vucic’s right-wing populist Serbian Progressive Party (SNS), which has been in power for more than ۱۴ years.

It is running ۲۵۰ candidates for the ۲۵۰-seat parliament, many of them academics or political outsiders, on a platform centred on fighting corruption.

“We are putting an end to ۱۴ years of humiliation, chaos and betrayal, and to decades of putting personal and party interests above yours,” university professor Jugoslav Gasic, one of the candidates on the Student List, told the crowd in Belgrade, who chanted “Victory, victory!”

“You deserve better, and we know how to deliver it. Students are winning!”

The railway disaster, widely blamed on corruption, triggered some of Serbia’s largest demonstrations since the fall of Slobodan Milosevic in ۲۰۰۰, and demands for transparency grew into calls for an early election.

Over the week, students marched for days across the country, including rural areas that are Vucic’s strongholds.

Vucic, who resigned the presidency in September to run for prime minister, called the snap election last month. He has accused the movement of being a foreign-funded coup attempt.

“Let us go out and defeat them! Defeat them decisively!” he told supporters on Thursday.

Serbia lacks reliable independent polling. But political scientist Dusan Vucicevic told the AFP news agency he expected the students to win more than ۴۰ percent of the vote, far more than any opposition list since the SNS took power in ۲۰۱۲.

The Associated Press news agency reported that polls suggested a close race between the two sides, raising fears of incidents if both claim victory.

Twenty-four Serbian civil society groups warned this week that conditions for “free and fair elections” were lacking, and a monitoring group cited more than ۱۰۰ violent incidents during the campaign.

On Wednesday, prosecutors questioned six people arrested on suspicion of plotting “violence, riots and attacks” on election day.