Serbia’s Student List preparing for talks on forming government despite no clear leader

Serbia's triumphant but untested Student List movement is preparing to start talks on forming a government capable of reversing 14 years of increasingly authoritarian nationalist rule, after a seismic weekend election win. Supporters of the movement, which has no experience of government, took to the streets in the west Balkan country on Monday after the strongman former president, Aleksandar Vučić, was defeated in a historic landslide.

Vučić conceded defeat late on Sunday, bringing his domination of Serb politics to an abrupt end and capping two years of anti-government protests triggered by the collapse of a canopy at the Novi Sad railway station that killed 16 people. With 100% of ballot samples counted, projected results from the Centre for Free Elections and Democracy in Belgrade showed the Student List on 53% of the vote, giving it 141 MPs in the 250-seat parliament, while Vučić's Serbian Progressive party (SNS) won 39%, giving it 103.

Leadership Challenges

As yet, there are few clues as to how the winning movement, built around collective decision-making, will actually govern. Its candidates included academics, actors and farmers as well as students, but it is deliberately leaderless with no hierarchy, so it is unclear who it will appoint as the prime minister and cabinet. Prominent Student List figures include Ilija Srdanović, a cardiologist who headed the candidate list; Dejan Šoškić, a former central bank governor; and Radomir Saičić, a chemistry professor at Belgrade University who spoke on behalf of the List after its victory.

Reform Agenda

Mirković told the Guardian the movement's first priority was "the social and psychological detoxification" of the country. The students' platform centres on a pledge to fight corruption and restore the rule of law, including creating an independent police unit accountable to prosecutors, not the interior ministry, and a purge of police officers linked to organised crime. It also aims to ban appointments of party loyalists to state-owned companies and promote financial accountability by new independent bodies for all major state infrastructure contracts to curb the misuse of public funds.

She added that the aim was to "rebuild society from the ground up: full disclosure of all contracts and financial flows; depoliticising and strengthening the judiciary; renewing the education and healthcare systems", and that state capture should "never again" be possible. The Student List deliberately kept divisive foreign policy issues, including relations with the EU and Russia, in the background.

International Response

The Kremlin said on Monday it hoped the new leaders "understand that cooperation with Russia is in Serbia's interests." International leaders joined a chorus of welcome to the students on Monday. "This is clearly a new chapter in the history of the country and its people," said the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy. We wish Serbia success, real development, and warm relations with the European community. We in Ukraine thank Serbia for respecting our people, our state, and our independence.

The German chancellor, Friedrich Merz, said Berlin would "actively support Serbia's European path" after the victory, saying the students "with their demand for the rule of law, fighting corruption and fundamental freedoms, have reached the people." Serbia's constitution requires the new parliament to convene within 30 days of the official election result, and sets a 90-day deadline after that for formation of the new government. The country must also hold new presidential elections before 27 December, since Vučić stepped down to run for prime minister.