Serbia's political order changed overnight. On Sunday, October 25, 2026, voters in a snap parliamentary election handed a projected outright majority to a student-led opposition movement — and the country's long-serving leader, Aleksandar Vucic, conceded defeat on live television before the official count was even finished.
File photo: Belgrade residents welcome marching students on the eve of the March 15, 2025 protest — the student movement that has now won Serbia's snap election. Photo: Emilija Knezevic, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
What Happened: The Numbers So Far
Serbia's 6.4 million voters were electing lawmakers to the 250-member National Assembly. According to projections based on samples of polling stations, the youth-backed Students' List won around 52 percent of the vote, which would give it roughly 135 to 140 seats — comfortably above the 126 needed to govern alone.
Vucic's Serbian Progressive Party (SNS), running as the "Aleksandar Vucic – United Serbia" list, is projected at around 39 to 40 percent and roughly 104 to 105 seats. Two independent trackers point the same way: the CeSID/Ipsos projection put the Students' List at 52 percent and 138 seats against 39.3 percent and 104 seats for Vucic's bloc, while the monitoring organisation CRTA put the shares at 51.47 percent and 40.42 percent. Minority lists are projected to take the remaining handful of seats.
One caution matters: these are projections, not the final official results. Serbia's Republic Electoral Commission had not confirmed the final count when Vucic spoke, and counting continued amid reported irregularities and delays. Voting at one polling station in Leskovac was extended after a violent confrontation disrupted the ballot. But the margin is wide enough that no major tracker disputes the direction of the result.
Vucic's Concession — And His Blame
Speaking at his party's election-night event, Vucic was blunt about the outcome. "We still do not have final results, on the basis of a sample... it is clear that we have lost these elections, the Student List has won, they will have between 135 and 140 seats and we will have 105, no one else has entered parliament," he said, according to Reuters.
He paired the concession with defiance. He blamed Serbia's independent media and alleged interference by unnamed European countries and an "American deep state" for the loss, and accused his opponents of "lying about everything." He said he would not flee the country — "No one is going to run away" — and would not appeal against the result in the courts, to avoid "unrest and clashes in the streets." He also said he was "waiting for them to come after me over the sound cannon," referring to accusations that police used a sound cannon against protesters last year.
File photo: Aleksandar Vucic in 2024. The SNS leader had been in power for 14 years before this defeat. Photo: Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.
How Two Years of Student Protests Led Here
This election did not come from nowhere. It is the endpoint — or at least the turning point — of nearly two years of student-led demonstrations that began after a train station canopy collapsed in Novi Sad in November 2024, killing 16 people. Protesters blamed corruption in the renovation work, and the demand for accountability widened into a broader movement accusing Vucic's government of corruption and dismantling democracy.
Vucic called the snap election in September, gambling that he could beat the movement at the ballot box. Pre-election polling suggested a close race — one Ipsos poll published on October 22, commissioned by Vucic's own list, even put his bloc ahead at 47.4 percent against 40 percent for the students. The actual result was far wider than those polls suggested, and turnout explains part of why: participation reached roughly 67 to 70 percent, the highest since the breakup of Yugoslavia in 1992 and well above the 58.77 percent recorded in 2023. The student campaign had focused heavily on bringing previously inactive voters to the polls.
Vucic, prime minister from 2014 and president since 2017, had led Serbia for 14 years through his SNS, maintaining close ties with Russian President Vladimir Putin while keeping Serbia on the path of European Union candidacy. His defeat is therefore not just a change of government — it is a test of which direction Serbia takes next.
Celebrations — And What Both Sides Say
News of the concession set off celebrations in central Belgrade, where crowds poured into the streets and drivers sounded their horns. Radomir Saicic, a chemistry professor at the University of Belgrade who stood as a Students' List candidate and has been touted as a possible future president, said: "Tonight is a victory of courage over fear, and of faith that Serbia can and must be different."
The students' case, in short, is that Serbia's institutions were captured by corruption and that only a clean break can restore democracy. Vucic's camp answers that the movement was fuelled from abroad — by European governments and an American "deep state" — and that the independent media campaigned against him. Readers should weigh both claims: the scale of the victory and the high turnout are facts; the question of foreign influence is an allegation Vucic has made without publishing evidence for it, while the corruption allegations that fuelled the protests trace back to a real, deadly infrastructure failure.
What Happens Next
Three things matter now. First, the official results: the Electoral Commission's final count will confirm whether the Students' List holds its outright majority. Second, government formation: with more than 126 seats, the Students' List could govern alone, but it must turn a protest movement into a functioning administration — choosing a prime minister, holding its diverse coalition together, and facing a state apparatus staffed by SNS appointees. Third, foreign policy: Serbia must balance its EU candidacy, its ties with Russia, and its relationship with the United States, which under President Trump had largely sidelined the opposition while dealing with the interim authorities in neighbouring Venezuela. How the new government handles that triangle will shape the Balkans well beyond Belgrade.
Frequently Asked Questions
Who won Serbia's snap election?
According to projections from CeSID/Ipsos and CRTA, the student-backed Students' List won around 52 percent of the vote and 135–140 seats in the 250-member parliament. Vucic conceded defeat on election night. Official final results were still pending when he spoke.
Why was the election called?
Vucic called the snap vote in September 2026 after nearly two years of student-led anti-corruption protests that began with the deadly Novi Sad station canopy collapse in November 2024.
Can the Students' List govern alone?
Yes, on the projected numbers: 126 seats are needed for a majority, and the Students' List is projected at 135–140. The official count will confirm this.
What does this mean for Serbia's relations with the EU and Russia?
Vucic balanced EU candidacy with close ties to Russia. The new government has not yet set out a foreign policy, so its direction on that balance is the biggest open question of the transition.
Sources
Results, turnout and quotes in this article were cross-checked across CNN, Reuters, The Times, and the CeSID/Ipsos and CRTA projections as reported by multiple outlets. Where figures differ slightly between trackers — notably the exact seat counts — the range is reported rather than a single number, and projections are distinguished from the still-pending official results.