Non-hierarchical movement is seeking to ‘rebuild society’ in Balkan country after years of authoritarian rule
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 Serbian 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. The remaining seats went to national minority party lists.
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.
Much like Péter Magyar’s Tisza party, which ended Viktor Orbán’s 16 years of illiberal government in Hungary this spring, the List faces public institutions staffed with civil servants loyal to the outgoing regime, complicating the task of institutional overhaul.
“Everyone in the student movement, and every candidate on the list, has a complete and very clear understanding of the weight of the responsibility before us,” said Ana Mirković, a university educationist, psychologist and Student List candidate.
“We do not see the election result as gaining power and privileges, but as taking on a historic debt to our own people and to our own children.”
Mirković told the Guardian the movement’s first priority was “the social and psychological detoxification” of the country.
Vučić’s 14-year rule has been described as a “textbook regime” of autocracy, with his party extending control over the media, judiciary and other state institutions and elections marred by registration irregularities, media bias and voter bribes.
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 to promote financial accountability and public scrutiny – by new independent bodies – of all major state infrastructure contracts to curb the misuse of public funds.
Mirković said the new government would dismantle a “system of intimidation” that encouraged “fear and polarisation”, by “urgently opening up” the media, putting an end to pressure on public-sector workers and “stopping institutional violence”.
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. The Kremlin said on Monday it hoped the new leaders “understand that cooperation with Russia is in Serbia’s interests”.
Dušan Vučićević, an analyst, said that, from the outset, the movement “insisted as much as possible that Serbia must first and foremost address domestic political issues – the literal dismantling of every institution, from the national to the local level”.
The students’ win marks a profound political shift in Serbia and could potentially offer inspiration to other student movements that have cropped up across Europe in recent weeks demanding better education standards and prospects.
However, Vučićević said it was distinct from other protests. “This experiment in grassroots democracy ultimately secured more than 50% of the vote,” he told Agence France-Presse, but it was “unclear whether a similar model could work in other countries”.
Nikola Burazer, programme director at the Belgrade-based Centre for Contemporary Politics, said on Monday that the movement’s decision-making process also needed to “be sped up”, as its process for choosing candidates “actually took a long time – months”.
He added: “After people are done celebrating and thinking about what happened yesterday, we will focus a bit more on what’s coming up, and how the government will look. Twenty-four hours ago that all seemed like a fantasy.”
On Sunday, Vučić, who maintained close ties with Russia throughout his tenure, blamed his party’s defeat on “the direct support of various European countries and the US deep state, the one that is also against President Trump”.
International leaders, meanwhile, 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. And we always celebrate our shared achievements.”
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.
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Source: www.theguardian.com
