Serbia’s long-serving president, Aleksandar Vucic, conceded defeat on election night after projections from a snap parliamentary election pointed to a clear victory for the Students’ List, a movement born out of nearly two years of student-led protests. The result, if confirmed by the official count, would end more than a decade of dominance by Vucic’s political camp and mark one of the most striking political turnarounds in modern Serbian history.
Voters went to the polls on Sunday, 25 October 2026, to elect all 250 members of the National Assembly, with 126 seats needed for a majority. Turnout was reported at around 67 to 70 percent, described by election monitors as the highest since 1992. Within hours of polls closing, Vucic appeared before supporters and acknowledged that, on the basis of the available projections, his side had lost.
What the projections show
According to projections reported by the polling organisations Ipsos and CeSID, the Students’ List was on course for around 52 percent of the vote and about 138 seats, against roughly 39.3 percent and 104 seats for the list backed by Vucic’s Serbian Progressive Party (SNS). Vucic himself put the Students’ List at between 135 and 140 seats and his own list at around 105, figures consistent with the published projection.
It is important to be clear about the status of those numbers. Vucic’s concession rested on a stratified sample and projections drawn from it, not on a certified final count. The official count by the Republic Electoral Commission (RIK) was still in progress on election night, and an early partial official snapshot, published at around 21:15 with only about 2.4 percent of polling stations processed, showed a different picture. Readers should therefore treat the seat figures in this article as projections, not final results, until the electoral commission completes and certifies its count.
That caution does not diminish the significance of the concession itself. A sitting president publicly accepting defeat on election night, before the final count, is rare in Serbian politics, and it was taken by supporters of the Students’ List as confirmation that the political landscape had shifted. Celebrations were reported in Belgrade on election night, with crowds gathering in the capital as the projections spread.
The Students’ List grew out of a protest movement rather than a traditional party machine. Its candidates drew support from students and citizens who had taken part in months of demonstrations, and its campaign presented itself as a break with the established political order. Its projected majority, if confirmed, would give it the power to form a government without needing coalition partners.
Two years of protests behind the vote
The roots of Sunday’s vote lie in November 2024, when the concrete canopy of the newly renovated railway station in Novi Sad collapsed, killing 16 people. The tragedy became a focal point for public anger over alleged corruption in public works and what critics described as increasingly authoritarian rule. Students began organising protests that spread across the country and continued, in various forms, for almost two years.
The demonstrators’ demands expanded over time from accountability for the Novi Sad disaster to broader calls for the rule of law, media freedom and free and fair elections. The government, for its part, repeatedly denied the corruption allegations and accused the protesters of seeking to seize power outside democratic channels. The standoff defined Serbian politics through 2025 and into 2026, and the decision to call a snap election was widely seen as an attempt to settle the question at the ballot box.
The high turnout reported on Sunday suggests that many voters treated the election as a referendum on that long dispute. Election observers had noted in the run-up to the vote that participation would be a key indicator of public engagement, and the reported figure of 67 to 70 percent, if confirmed, would be the strongest turnout in more than three decades.
For Vucic, who has dominated Serbian politics since becoming prime minister in 2014 and president in 2017, the projected defeat is a personal as well as a political blow. He built his position on promises of stability and economic development, and on a foreign policy that balanced relations with the European Union, Russia and China. His concession speech struck a notably restrained tone, acknowledging the projected outcome rather than disputing it.
What the result could mean for Serbia
If the official count confirms the projection, the Students’ List will face the immediate challenge of turning a protest movement into a governing force. Forming a government, choosing a prime minister and agreeing a programme will test a movement whose strength so far has been opposition rather than administration. Its supporters will expect swift action on the issues that drove the protests, including accountability for the Novi Sad collapse and reforms to public institutions.
Serbia’s relationship with the European Union is also likely to come into focus. The country is a candidate for EU membership, but accession talks have moved slowly, and Brussels has repeatedly raised concerns about democratic standards and the rule of law. A new government emerging from the protest movement may seek to reset that relationship, though it will also inherit the same difficult questions over Kosovo and regional stability that have constrained every Serbian government in recent years.
The SNS, meanwhile, will remain a significant force even in defeat. A projected tally of around 104 seats would leave it as the largest opposition bloc, with the parliamentary weight to scrutinise the new government closely. How Vucic himself responds in the coming weeks, and what role he seeks in opposition, will be closely watched.
What happens next
The immediate next step is the completion of the official count. The Republic Electoral Commission will process results from all polling stations and publish a certified outcome, at which point the projected seat distribution will either be confirmed or revised. Only then can government formation formally begin. Until that certification arrives, the story of Sunday’s election remains, strictly speaking, a projected result and a concession based on it, rather than a final one. But the direction of travel, as acknowledged by the president himself on election night, already appears clear, and Serbia now awaits the formal confirmation of a political change that few would have predicted when the students first took to the streets two years ago.
