Serbia Votes in Tight Snap Election: Vučić vs. Student List

Serbia is holding early parliamentary elections on Sunday, 25 October, in a contest between former president Aleksandar Vučić and the student movement that led protests against him for almost two years, European Pravda reported.

Polling stations are open from 7:00 to 20:00 at more than 8,000 locations. Almost 6.5 million citizens are eligible to vote, and just over 100,000 are registered to vote abroad. Queues formed at polling stations in Belgrade and Novi Sad before voting began at 7 a.m.

Two main contenders

Eighteen lists are running, but the vote has become a race between Vučić's right-wing Serbian Progressive Party, which nominated him as its candidate for prime minister, and the youth-backed "Student List". The two were level on the eve of the vote, which makes this the least predictable election in years. An Ipsos poll published on Thursday put the Progressives at 47% against 40% for the student movement; other polls showed the Student List ahead. High turnout is expected, and most small parties may fail to clear the 3% threshold for entering parliament.

How the vote came about

Vučić, still president at the time, called the snap election on 9 September and resigned from the presidency at the end of that month. The vote follows almost two years of student demonstrations against corruption and authoritarianism. The protests began after 16 people died in 2024 when a canopy collapsed at the railway station in Novi Sad, and the students have won broad public support since. The previous parliamentary election was held on 17 December 2023.

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