Serbia's longtime leader Aleksandar Vučić conceded defeat to a student-led protest movement in a historic parliamentary election on Sunday. In a seismic political shift, the populist leader, who has dominated Serbian politics for over a decade, conceded less than two hours after polls closed. Vučić told supporters at his party headquarters in Belgrade that preliminary results and a stratified sample made it clear his party had lost, congratulating his opponents.
The snap election followed nearly two years of student-led demonstrations against perceived corruption and authoritarianism. These protests were sparked by the 2024 collapse of a train station canopy in Novi Sad, which killed 16 people. Vučić, who previously denounced the movement as a foreign-led attempt to unseat him, had held virtually absolute power for 14 years, serving first as prime minister and then as president.
The vote served as a referendum on Vučić's political dominance and the system in place for more than a decade. Voters turned out in record numbers, with some estimates reaching nearly 70%, the highest since the break-up of Yugoslavia in 1992. While Belgrade saw tens of thousands of people choking main boulevards with smoke and flares, the election commission reported turnout at 65% amid allegations of intimidation, violence, and voting irregularities.
The victory for the anti-corruption movement, which reportedly won over 2 million votes, ends Vučić's long grip on power. This outcome heralds a new political era for the Balkan country as the unprecedented student-led opposition seeks to crack down on graft and boost democracy.