Student List: How Gen Z Protests Led to Ouster of Serbia’s Long-Term President
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A student-led movement in Serbia has defeated the ruling political establishment after nearly two years of peaceful protests.
The protests turned public anger over corruption into an election victory that could reshape the country’s future.
The Student List secured a historic parliamentary victory against the political camp of long-serving leader Aleksandar Vučić in the October 25, 2026, election, ending more than a decade of dominance by his Serbian Progressive Party (SNS).
Vučić conceded defeat after preliminary results indicated that the student-backed movement had secured a majority in the 250-seat parliament.
The victory, marking a major turning point for a country whose government had faced years of criticism over corruption, media freedom and democratic accountability.
🇷🇸 This is Belgrade, not Paris, and this is how REAL students protest... A sea of lights, thousands filling the streets, and NO smashed storefronts or burning cars. Serbia's student-led protest movement has repeatedly brought huge crowds into the streets, turning demonstrations into striking displays of lights, silence, and mass participation. You don't need to destroy your own city to make those in power pay attention... Writer: Samuel https://t.co/sxwjQ5NpsQ
— Mario Nawfal (@MarioNawfal) October 23, 2026
How railway station disaster sparked protests
The movement’s journey began on November 1, 2024, when a concrete canopy collapsed at the railway station in Novi Sad, killing 16 people.
The tragedy triggered widespread outrage, with citizens demanding accountability over the construction works and questioning whether corruption and negligence had contributed to the disaster.
🇷🇸 #Serbia #GenZProtests There is no end to the global #StudentProtests stemming out of economic hardships, inflation, skyrocketing living / housing costs, and repressive fascist regimes. One incident - Novi Sad railway station canopy collapse in Nov 2024, that killed 16; university students across Serbia organised blockades, silent marches demanding accountability for alleged corruption and institutional failure, and grew into a nationwide movement. From a leaderless structure, it eventually evolved into the “Student List – Students Win” electoral ticket of 250 candidates for the 25 October snap parliamentary elections. Today their final campaign rally filled Belgrade’s Slavija Square and surrounding streets with hundreds of thousands from across Serbia to challenge long-standing powerstructure. Current ongoing #GenZ protests; • Albania 🇦🇱 • Belgium 🇧🇪 • France 🇫🇷 • Germany 🇩🇪 • Greece 🇬🇷 • India 🇮🇳 • Italy 🇮🇹 • Portugal 🇵🇹 • Serbia 🇷🇸 • Spain 🇪🇸
— Shafek Koreshe (@shafeKoreshe) October 22, 2026
University students soon became the driving force behind the demonstrations, initially organising vigils to honour the victims and demand justice.
Every Friday, demonstrators observed 15 minutes of silence at 11.52am, the time the canopy collapsed.
What began as a symbolic tribute gradually developed into a broader campaign against corruption and the lack of accountability in public institutions.
As the demonstrations spread, students expanded their demands beyond the railway station disaster, calling for greater transparency, an independent judiciary and freedom from political interference in the media.
From peaceful demonstrations to a nationwide movement
Rather than limiting their campaign to university campuses, the students took their message across Serbia, organising marches, bridge blockades and public demonstrations that attracted support from different sections of society.
In January 2025, students from Belgrade walked approximately 100 kilometres to join their colleagues in Novi Sad during protests that included the blockade of three bridges.
The campaign reached a major milestone in March 2025, when hundreds of thousands of people reportedly gathered in Belgrade to demonstrate against the government.
The movement also reached smaller towns and rural communities, helping students connect with citizens who had limited access to independent accounts of the protests.
Another youth-led movement has turned public anger into political power. In Serbia, what began as demands for accountability after a dea.dly railway disas.ter grew into a nationwide challenge to the https://t.co/GUOFdQVSRz establishment. Now, a student-backed list is projected to win a parliamentary majority. The bigger question: are governments underestimating a generation that has learned to turn pro.tests into votes? Disclaimer: This content is based on publicly available information and is intended for informational purposes only. Images/Videos are used for reference and illustrative purposes only.
— Verum (@verumnetwork) October 26, 2026
Its appeal extended beyond young people, attracting support from citizens concerned about corruption, public accountability and the direction of the country.
The students largely relied on peaceful demonstrations, public assemblies and coordinated volunteer networks to sustain their campaign.
They organised working groups to handle logistics, communications, safety and legal assistance.
Their decentralised structure allowed participants to make decisions collectively rather than depend on a single leader.
How the Student List turned protests into election victory
As the campaign grew, the students recognised that street demonstrations alone would not deliver the political changes they wanted.
The creation of the Student List gave the movement a route into formal politics, allowing it to challenge the ruling establishment through parliamentary elections.
Its candidates came from different professional backgrounds, including academia, law, medicine, sport and the arts.
Rather than relying on established political figures, the movement presented itself as an alternative to the existing political system.
Its campaign focused on fighting corruption, restoring public trust in institutions, protecting civil liberties and strengthening the independence of the judiciary and media.
The strategy paid off at the ballot box.
Vučić acknowledged the defeat after preliminary estimates indicated that the Student List could secure between 135 and 140 seats, compared with approximately 105 for his political camp.
“We still do not have final results,” Vučić told supporters at his party headquarters in Belgrade. “On the basis of a sample … it is clear that we have lost these elections, the Student List has won.”
The announcement prompted celebrations across Serbia, with supporters gathering in Belgrade and other cities to mark the result.
What the victory means for Serbia
The election result represents a major setback for a political establishment that had maintained power since 2012.
For the students, however, winning the election is only the beginning of a more difficult task: translating their campaign promises into meaningful reforms.
The movement has limited experience in government, and its decentralised structure could make it difficult to agree on leadership and policy priorities.
Its candidates must now work together to address corruption, strengthen democratic institutions and restore confidence in public services while navigating a political system shaped by years of ruling-party dominance.
The European Union has welcomed the political shift and expressed readiness to support reforms involving the rule of law, media freedom, anti-corruption efforts and democratic institutions.
The coming months will test whether the movement can maintain the unity that carried it from university campuses to a parliamentary majority.
Serbia has won. The Serbian Gen Z has shown the world that oppressive systems bow when people refuse to give up. They organised, they stayed the course, and yesterday they won. Aleksandar Vučić, the man who has run Serbia for 14 years, went on television and admitted defeat to a group of university students. What happened in Serbia should have happened in Kenya. If we had kept the momentum of 2024 and dealt head-on with infiltration by the intelligence services, maybe we would be free today. If we had turned down every offer that meant betraying the young men and women who died on the protest trail, we would be free. Free of the lie that an opposition many believe Uhuru leads and bankrolls is somehow better than William Ruto's government. Instead, we went back to the old conditioning: politics is tribal, and to win you must work with anyone, including the people who shot your children. Think about how primitive that is. Every election cycle, the same men tell us to vote with our tribe. Then they eat together after the votes are counted. Their tribes never sit at that table. Tribe is the fence they build around us so we fight each other while they share the farm. As long as we believe it, impunity has a permanent home in Kenya. In June 2024, for a few weeks, nobody asked anybody's tribe. The bullets didn't ask either. Then we let voices of desperation mock that movement: "It's leaderless, it will go nowhere." A movement that could have toppled a murderous, arrogant, repressive regime was talked down by the very people who should have defended it. We were not reinventing the wheel. This wave has already swept through Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Nepal, Madagascar and Burkina Faso. Now Serbia. In November 2024, the canopy of a newly renovated railway station in Novi Sad collapsed and killed sixteen people. Serbians asked one simple question: how does a building that was just renovated kill sixteen people? Their answer was corruption. When government-linked thugs attacked students at silent vigils for the dead, the students locked down their universities. Their demands fitted on one page: publish the renovation documents, prosecute the attackers, drop charges against arrested protesters. There was no leader, no famous face, no big man. Every university department held open meetings where any student could speak, and every decision was put to a vote. Nobody could be bought, because there was nobody important enough to buy. Nobody could be arrested to end it, because no single person was running it. Farmers, taxi drivers, teachers and doctors joined them. Vučić used the oldest tricks in the book. He called the students foreign agents, then terrorists. In Kenya, protesters were called "goons", foreign-funded, and sponsored by the opposition. Every regime reads from the same script. The students never answered with violence. They stopped shouting "Vučić must go" and demanded early elections instead: let the people decide. They collected 400,000 signatures and published a plan to fight corruption. In September, Vučić gave in and called the vote. They campaigned on foot and on bicycles, village by village. Nearly 70 percent of Serbians voted, the highest turnout since 1992. On election night, Vučić conceded. In Kenya, the intelligence boys have probably learnt to plant themselves everywhere. We have watched honest student leadership quietly die, and student leaders shamelessly accept whatever is offered. But there are not 50 million of them. The people are still the majority. We all pay the same Sh227 for a litre of petrol. We all wait at the same hospital with no medicine. Serbia's spark was a fallen roof. Ours could be the pump price, or SHA, or something we can't see coming yet. I don't know what it will be. I just know it is possible to get rid of this old, tired way of doing politics. Serbia and so many other countries have proved it.
— Agnes Momanyi. (@agness_Momanyi) October 26, 2026
For now, Serbia’s students have demonstrated how sustained peaceful protests can transform public anger into electoral power. What began with demands for justice for 16 people killed in a railway station disaster has grown into a nationwide movement challenging the country’s political establishment.
Their victory offers a powerful lesson in civic mobilisation, but the lasting impact will depend on whether they can turn the promise of change into a government capable of delivering it.
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