Serbia’s Vučić Concedes Election Defeat to Student-Led Movement

Serbian leader Aleksandar Vučić has conceded defeat in Sunday’s snap parliamentary election to the student-led Students’ List, a result that would end his party’s long rule and hand a parliamentary majority to a movement born out of nearly two years of street protests.

Speaking on live television on Sunday evening, before final official results were announced, Vučić said it was clear from a sample of the vote that his Serbian Progressive Party (SNS) had lost. He said the Students’ List would hold between 135 and 140 seats in the 250-member parliament, against 105 for his party, and that no other party had entered parliament.

FAKTA

• Who: Aleksandar Vučić, Serbia’s leader, and the student-led Students’ List
• What: Vučić conceded defeat in a snap parliamentary election on Sunday, 25 October 2026
• Projected result: Students’ List 135–140 seats; SNS 105 seats, in the 250-member parliament
• Vote projection: Students’ List about 52 per cent; SNS about 39.3 per cent, according to a projection from the Centre for Free Elections and Democracy and Ipsos Serbia
• Turnout: 67.9 per cent by 7 p.m., 12 points higher than at the same time in the 2023 election, according to election monitor CRTA
• Background: The snap election was called by Vučić in September, after almost two years of student-led protests that followed the collapse of a railway station canopy in Novi Sad in November 2024, which killed 16 people
• Status: Vučić’s concession was based on a sample and projections; final official results had not yet been announced

Vučić concedes on live television

“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,” Vučić said, according to Reuters.

Vučić, who became prime minister in 2014 and president in 2017, said he would not appeal against the result in the courts, saying he wanted to avoid unrest and clashes in the streets. He said he would not leave the country, telling supporters: “No one is going to run away.”

He attributed the defeat to what he described as a “revolution fuelled by European countries and the deep American state”, and criticised his opponents’ campaign. Those claims were his own characterisation of the result; the student movement has presented its campaign as a protest against corruption and what it calls creeping authoritarianism.

Celebrations in Belgrade

Cheers broke out among Students’ List candidates at their campaign headquarters in Belgrade as Vučić spoke, and celebrations were reported in streets across the country. The movement’s candidates began planning a new government that would hold well over the 126 seats needed for a parliamentary majority.

Radomir Saicic, a chemistry professor at the University of Belgrade who stood as a candidate for the Students’ List, said: “Tonight is a victory of courage over fear, and of faith that Serbia can and must be different.”

He thanked everyone who, in his words, “refused to give up, who stood by one another, and who showed that Serbia belongs not to a handful of people, but to all its citizens”, and called for celebrations to be peaceful and with dignity.

How the student movement reached parliament

Serbia’s 6.4 million voters were electing lawmakers to the 250-member parliament in a highly contested election that pitted Vučić and the SNS against a diverse student-led opposition movement. The students had spent two years protesting the government, accusing it of corruption and of dismantling democracy, and had built a popular following across the country.

The movement grew after the Novi Sad canopy collapse in November 2024, which killed 16 people and prompted outrage over alleged shoddy construction linked to corrupt contracting. The protests that followed became the greatest political challenge Vučić had faced since he first became prime minister in 2014.

High turnout marked Sunday’s vote. CRTA, Serbia’s election monitoring group, put turnout at 67.9 per cent by 7 p.m., 12 percentage points higher than at the same time in the 2023 election, which it described as a record and a positive sign.

What happens next

The Students’ List is now expected to form a government, with its candidates saying their first steps would include tackling corruption and checking state appointments. Vučić said he would not stand in the way of the result through the courts, while the students said serious work would begin the morning after the celebrations.

Because final official results had not yet been announced when Vučić conceded, the exact seat numbers remain subject to confirmation by the electoral authorities. What is not in doubt, on the basis of Vučić’s own concession and the projections, is the direction of the result: the Students’ List has won a parliamentary majority, and Serbia is heading for a change of government.

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