# Serbia votes on Vučić's 12-year grip

> A student-led movement challenges the populist leader in Sunday's snap election, but concerns linger over voting fairness.
- Title: Serbia votes on Vučić's 12-year grip · BBC News | Shortify
- Summary: A student-led movement challenges the populist leader in Sunday's snap election, but concerns linger over voting fairness. Serbians vote Sunday in a snap…
- Keywords: serbia, aleksandar vučić, student movement, election, belgrade, novi sad, train station collapse, serbian progressive party, european union, news, world, votes
- Source: BBC News — https://bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cmq8n3v94ql3o
- Published: 2026-10-22T14:33:06.485+00:00
- Read time: 2 min
- Topics: serbia, aleksandar vučić, student movement, election, belgrade, novi sad, train station collapse, serbian progressive party, european union, news, world
## Snap election threatens Vučić's grip
Serbians vote Sunday for a new parliament in elections that threaten populist leader Aleksandar Vučić's twelve years in power after two years of student protests.
## Train station collapse sparked movement
On one November twenty twenty four, a concrete canopy collapsed outside Novi Sad train station, killing sixteen people. The tragedy sparked weekly student protests demanding justice.
## Students saw corruption and negligence
Critics linked the station's fatally flawed renovation to Vučić, who had closely associated himself with the project. The collapse became emblematic of corruption and negligence in Serbia.
## Movement grew beyond campuses
Student protests became a national movement encompassing farmers, actors and judges. In March twenty twenty five, Belgrade saw one of its biggest ever protests as the leaderless movement strengthened.
## Student List fields diverse candidates
The Student List is fielding candidates from across Serbian society including teachers, professors, actors, doctors, farmers and scientists. Lead candidate Ilija Srdanović, a cardiologist, said the energy was unstoppable.

> The energy is unstoppable.
## Student List demands four reforms
The movement wants to eradicate corruption, purge officials linked to rule-breaking or organised crime, reform Serbia's skewed media and stop recruiting party loyalists to head public enterprises.
## Vučić seeks return to prime minister
Vučić has completed two terms as president and cannot seek a third. He now leads his party aiming to return to prime minister, which he left in twenty seventeen.
## How Sunday's vote will work
Serbia's parliament has two hundred fifty seats under proportional representation. Six point four five million registered voters aged eighteen and over choose from eighteen lists. Only seven field all two hundred fifty candidates.
## Watchdogs warn of unfair conditions
Independent watchdog CRTA warned of threats, violence and surveillance. It said state institutions engaged in electoral engineering instead of ensuring equal conditions. Serbian media devoted almost three quarters of TV coverage to government representatives.
## European observers monitoring the vote
European observers are monitoring Sunday's vote.The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe cited a tense and divisive electoral climate.Some one hundred sixty attacks on media and journalists were recorded in Serbia this year.
## Key takeaway

Serbians vote Sunday in a snap election where a leaderless student movement born from a train station tragedy threatens populist leader Aleksandar Vučić's 12 years in power.