Tens of thousands of supporters of Serbia’s student-led opposition movement gathered in central Belgrade on Thursday for a final rally before Sunday’s parliamentary election, which they hope will end Aleksandar Vucic’s 14-year rule.
The crowd filled Slavija Square, waving flags bearing the words “students are winning” and blowing whistles, while Mr Vucic addressed his own supporters at a sports hall across the city.
The election follows almost two years of protests sparked by the collapse of a canopy at a newly renovated railway station in Novi Sad in 2024. Sixteen people were killed in the disaster, which was widely blamed on corruption.
The demonstrations, among Serbia’s largest since the fall of Slobodan Milosevic in 2000, began with demands for transparency before developing into calls for an early election.
The movement is contesting the vote through the Student List, a leaderless group of student-backed candidates seeking to remove Mr Vucic’s right-wing populist Serbian Progressive Party, known as the SNS, which has governed since 2012.
It has put forward 250 candidates for the 250-seat parliament, including academics and political outsiders, on a platform focused on combating corruption.
“We are putting an end to 14 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, told the rally.
“You deserve better, and we know how to deliver it. Students are winning!” he said, as the crowd chanted: “Victory, victory!”
For some supporters, the campaign has created an expectation of political change. Marija Nedeljkovic Radic, 47, said: “Really, for the first time in my life, I believe that it is possible,” adding that young people had given her hope of “a normal country”.
Students have spent the past week marching across Serbia, including through rural areas considered strongholds for Mr Vucic. He called the snap election last month after resigning the presidency in September to run for prime minister.
Mr Vucic has accused the movement of attempting a foreign-funded coup. Addressing his supporters on Thursday, he said: “Let us go out and defeat them! Defeat them decisively!”
There are no reliable independent opinion polls in Serbia. Political scientist Dusan Vucicevic said he expected the Student List to win more than 40 per cent of the vote, which would be a stronger performance than any opposition list has achieved since the SNS came to power.
Other polling cited in reports has suggested a close contest, prompting fears of incidents if both sides claim victory. Twenty-four civil society groups said this week that conditions for free and fair elections were lacking, while an election monitoring group reported more than 100 violent incidents during the campaign.
On Wednesday, prosecutors questioned six people arrested on suspicion of plotting “violence, riots and attacks” on election day.
