Madar (International) - Serbian leader Aleksandar Vucic on Sunday, October 25, 2026, conceded his list's defeat in the snap parliamentary election to the Student List, which emerged from a student-led protest movement that has lasted nearly two years, Al Jazeera English reported, citing AFP.
Based on a sample of votes, the Student List was expected to win between 135 and 140 seats in the 250-member parliament, against 105 for his own list, Vucic said: "We still do not have final results... it is clear that we have lost these elections." A majority of 126 seats is needed to form a government.
A representative sample by the CeSID and Ipsos pollsters gave the student list 138 seats against 104 for the Serbian Progressive Party (SNS), in power since 2012, with the remaining seats likely to go to ethnic minority parties, according to The Guardian. Turnout reached 67.6% by 7pm local time, the highest since the break-up of Yugoslavia in 1992.
"Students won, and with them also a hope that Serbia can be a country of justice, freedom and dignity," said Radomir Saicic, a Student List candidate. The independent monitor CRTA, meanwhile, said its observers recorded pressure on voters or election workers at almost a third of the 500 polling stations it monitored.
The protests began after a concrete canopy collapsed at the Novi Sad railway station in November 2024, killing 16 people, and grew into a broad anti-corruption movement. Vucic resigned as president in September to run for prime minister. About 6.5 million people were eligible to vote, with 18 electoral lists competing.
