Serbia goes to the polls
Voters across Serbia cast ballots Sunday in a parliamentary election widely seen as a referendum on Aleksandar Vucic, who has led the country for more than a decade, first as prime minister and later as president. According to Al Jazeera, polling stations opened at 7am local time and were due to close at 8pm, with the first indications of results expected roughly two hours after that.
Vucic called the snap vote in September. He also resigned the presidency that month so he could seek the post of prime minister again. Early reports cited by the BBC pointed to record-high turnout, though final figures were not part of the material available.
A defeat for the incumbent would be a major political shift in the Balkan nation of six million people. Al Jazeera noted that it would recall the loss suffered by Hungary's Viktor Orban in April.
How the student movement began
The vote follows almost two years of demonstrations led by students. The protests were set off in 2024, when a canopy at a train station in Novi Sad collapsed and killed 16 people. Many Serbians blamed the disaster on corruption in government, and protesters have since accused those in power of serving themselves rather than the public.
The movement has drawn broad backing well beyond university campuses. According to Al Jazeera, about 150,000 supporters gathered in central Belgrade on Thursday. Rights groups and activists say that repression has intensified since the collapse.
Vucic and his Serbian Progressive Party, known as the SNS, reject allegations of repression, corruption and spying on opponents. The former president has also said the students receive money from foreign agents in Croatia and Montenegro. The students deny that.
Competing offers to voters
Vucic remains a formidable incumbent. Al Jazeera reported that many voters credit him with lifting Serbia out of economic obscurity and overseeing sustained modernisation. His campaign pledged larger pensions and public sector pay, more spending on state-run health services and financial help for young couples.
In foreign policy, he has courted both China, a major investor, and Russia, a longtime ally and the main supplier of the country's natural gas, while saying EU membership remains possible. Relations with Brussels have nonetheless soured, as the bloc has grown impatient with the lack of progress on the judiciary, the rule of law and corruption.
The Student List presents a 250-person slate of mostly little-known candidates, including university professors, actors and farmers. It is headed by cardiologist Ilija Srdanovic. Its platform centers on fighting corruption and improving education, and it has said little about international goals.
What analysts and polls say
Jelena Vasiljevic, a senior research associate at the University of Belgrade's Institute for Philosophy and Social Theory, told Al Jazeera the campaign is focused on ending graft, restoring the rule of law and rebuilding institutions, rather than on Russia, EU accession or relations with Kosovo, which declared independence from Serbia in 2008. "The political dynamic has changed from the ground up," she said.
She said young people, long regarded as the country's least politically engaged group, have become the core of its largest social mobilisation in decades. Turnout, she argued, will be decisive. The SNS has a disciplined base of loyal voters, sustained by a system in which goods and services are traded for political support. The students, by contrast, must unite opposition-minded voters and also bring in people who usually stay home, along with the undecided.
Polling points to a close contest. An Ipsos survey released Thursday put the SNS at 47 percent and the students at 40 percent, while other surveys have shown the students leading.
