The morning after Aleksandar Vucic’s surprise defeat, Serbian voters still did not know who would replace him. The movement that ousted him, Student List, won 53% of the vote in a snap election that Vucic himself had called in response to protests over alleged government corruption. The group is expected to take power within weeks. Yet by design, its decision-making is opaque, and it is not clear how it will choose a governing cabinet. This is the central paradox of Serbia’s new political moment: a movement strong enough to end more than a decade of dominance by one leader has no leader of its own, and no public blueprint for the government it has just earned the right to form.
Student List’s top candidate was Ilija Srdanovic, a 56-year-old medicine professor and cardiologist. He is not necessarily the group’s choice for prime minister: the movement avoided naming a preferred candidate. That decision fitted its decentralised structure. The movement operates through plenums, grassroots cells that each contribute ideas to an umbrella group which sets the general direction. Its members take turns appearing in public so that no single figure gains too high a profile.
The design has clear advantages. A movement without a leader is harder to decapitate, discredit or buy off, and it prevents the personality-driven politics that critics associate with the incumbent. It also fits the movement’s origins, which lie in student assemblies. But governing requires decisions to be made quickly, and someone has to be answerable to parliament, to foreign governments and to voters. The first test of Student List will be how it converts a deliberately diffuse process into named ministers and a clear chain of accountability. Until then, markets, diplomats and the public must guess.
The movement’s growth is a story of escalation. In 2024, a canopy at a newly refurbished train station in Novi Sad collapsed, killing 16 people. University students and their professors led anti-government rallies, blaming corruption and official incompetence. The following year, the students seized control of university premises and began demanding early elections. They flooded social media with slogans, and opposition media outlets ran their advertisements. By mid-2025, an ad-hoc protest movement had developed into a formidable political operation.
Government officials have said that Student List is funded by foreign actors seeking to destabilise Serbia, a charge the movement denies. Vucic’s allies have also denied that the country has a corruption problem. Neither claim has been settled by independent evidence in the material available, and the election result suggests that a majority of voters did not accept the government’s account.
Vucic’s record complicates the story. Under him, Serbia’s economy was revived: the nation’s economic output tripled during his tenure, household incomes almost tripled and large infrastructure projects changed the landscape of Belgrade. His supporters credit him with modernisation.
Yet prosperity did not protect him. Accusations of routine graft eroded his support. He gained a reputation for micromanaging, and his government handed out large contracts directly rather than through public tenders, which led to allegations of corruption. Many Serbs were frustrated by his party’s overwhelming dominance of national life and its reputation for favouring loyalty over competence in key appointments.
The lesson is that economic growth and legitimacy are not the same thing. Voters can appreciate new roads and still reject a system they believe is rigged. The Novi Sad disaster gave that frustration a concrete symbol: a failure of public works that cost lives.
Fighting corruption is the group’s top priority, and its programme is broad. It says it would pursue graft that drains money from the public purse, break up monopolies that hinder fair competition and review all large contracts signed by Vucic’s administration. It would challenge the sale of national assets to foreign investors and prioritise domestic control over mineral and other resources. To bring transparency to public life, it would address perceived corruption in the legal system, overhaul the judiciary and investigate suspiciously acquired or undeclared assets. Leading activists have spoken of creating a special prosecutorial police force to investigate abuses of power.
These plans raise both hopes and concerns. A review of large contracts could expose wrongdoing and recover money, but it could also unsettle investors if it appears arbitrary. A special prosecutorial force could strengthen accountability, but it also risks being seen as an instrument of political retribution if it lacks clear legal limits. The treatment of foreign investment, particularly in mining and other resources, will be watched closely, since Serbia has sought American and Chinese capital and the issue touches on sensitive environmental and economic questions.
On foreign policy and national questions, the movement signals little change. Vucic maintained, but did not decisively push, Serbia’s long-standing bid to join the European Union, while seeking US and Chinese investment and cordial relations with Russia to preserve access to cheap natural gas. Student List, like him, would not join Western sanctions on Russia, which it regards as an influential country and an important energy source. It rejects any recognition of Kosovo, which declared independence unilaterally in 2008. Russia and China have long supported Serbia’s claim over the territory.
Another point of continuity is religion. Vucic cultivated the support of the Serbian Orthodox Church to bolster his nationalist agenda, and Student List activists showed similar support for the institution at some rallies.
This matters for how the change is understood abroad. European leaders welcomed the result and said they were ready to work on Serbia’s future in the Union, but the new government will not necessarily deliver the alignment with EU foreign policy that Brussels expects. The movement’s priorities are domestic: rule of law and clean administration. Its stance on sanctions and Kosovo suggests that it will preserve the balancing act between East and West that Serbia has long practised.
Several challenges are visible. The first is the transition: the group is slated to take power within weeks, which leaves little time to select a cabinet, agree on priorities and manage the handover from a party that has dominated institutions for years. The second is expertise. A movement of professors, activists and newcomers will need experienced administrators, and will have to decide whether to recruit civil servants who served under Vucic. The third is the tension between accountability and fairness: pursuing corruption without appearing vindictive will require credible institutions and procedures. The fourth is cohesion. Decentralised movements can find it hard to maintain unity when they face the compromises of government.
There is also the matter of the opposition. Vucic’s Serbian Progressive Party remains a large organisation, and the way it behaves in opposition, as well as its influence in the media, the economy and the security services, will shape how easily the new government can act.
The most immediate indicator is the identity of the prime minister and the cabinet, and how the choice is made. The second is early actions on contracts and investigations: whether the government publishes clear criteria and uses established legal procedures. The third is the handling of foreign policy, including relations with the EU, Russia and China and the position on sanctions. The fourth is the treatment of foreign investors in mining and other strategic sectors. The fifth is the stability of the movement itself.
Student List has achieved what few thought possible: it removed a dominant leader through the ballot box with an outright majority. Its next task is harder, since governing demands the leadership, expertise and compromise that its structure was designed to avoid. The movement’s credibility will depend on whether it can convert its anti-corruption message into lawful, transparent practice, and whether it can keep together the broad coalition of voters that backed it. For Serbia, the real change will not be measured by the number of votes won on Sunday, but by whether the institutions that failed in Novi Sad can be rebuilt.
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