Citizens of Serbia will go to the polls on Sunday, October 25, for another snap parliamentary election – the third in the past five years. In it, a student movement that grew out of a civic initiative will seek to end the 14-year rule of Aleksandar Vučić and his Serbian Progressive Party (SNS).
Vučić resigned as president at the end of September. Since he cannot run for a third term, he now aims to become prime minister, a post he held from 2012 until he was elected president in 2017.
However, the election campaign has been accompanied by growing concerns about possible electoral manipulation.
The elections are being closely watched by the European Union, which has criticized Serbia for backsliding on democracy under Vučić’s leadership.
Uncertain outcome
Amid deep divisions and social tensions, Vučić’s Serbian Progressive Party (SNS) aims to retain power two years after mass protests against the government and corruption across the country.
Now, for the first time in many years, it faces a real challenger: the Student List, a movement that emerged from these protests.
“These are the first elections in more than a decade whose outcome is truly very uncertain,” Vladimir Bilčik, former European Parliament rapporteur for Serbia, told Radio Free Europe (RFE).
Polls so far show that the electorate in Serbia is largely divided between those who support a broad coalition built around the ruling party and those who back the student movement.
The students have no formal leaders, while their electoral list consists of non-partisan figures, most of whom are university professors.
On November 1, 2024, the collapse of the newly renovated canopy at the city’s railway station killed 16 people. Suspicions of corruption in the construction of one of the government’s major projects, led by a Chinese company, brought protesters onto the streets across the country.
The government denied the allegations, while protesters faced police violence and arrests. One of the most serious incidents occurred on March 15, 2025, when authorities were allegedly used an acoustic weapon illegally against peaceful demonstrators.
Vučić versus the Student List
More than 6.4 million eligible voters will choose among 2,418 candidates for the 250 seats in Parliament. However, the race is expected to be fought mainly between Vučić’s party and the Student List.
At its core are the continuation of Vučić’s policies, including close ties with Russia and China, and the students’ pledge to fight corruption.
Some U.S. lawmakers have warned that Moscow may play an active role in the elections, while the European Parliament has raised concerns about Russian influence operations in Serbia.
“Russia is making available its best resources, tactics and methods to monitor, suppress and obstruct the citizens of Serbia, as well as the powerful student movement that wants to restore the rule of law in the country,” Republican Congressman Joe Wilson told RFE.
In addition to close ties with Russia, Serbia’s main gas supplier, Vučić has sought to strengthen relations with China, a major investor in the country, while maintaining its long-standing aspiration for membership in the European Union. He has also sought to improve relations with the United States and Israel.
During the campaign, he pledged to continue this foreign policy course, including refusing to impose sanctions on Russia over its invasion of Ukraine, despite calls from the EU.
The student movement, meanwhile, has put foreign policy on the back burner. However, it has opposed sanctions against Russia and reiterated its support for Belgrade’s official position against recognising Kosovo’s independence.
“This shows that even students are unable to escape the trap of Serbia’s nationalist politics, which is built on the myth of Kosovo,” said Belgrade professor Zarko Korac, speaking to REL.
Citizens unfurl a banner against Aleksandar Vučić as they welcome students who have marched to the capital from different parts of the country, one day before the closing rally of their electoral list, “Lista e Studentëve” (Student List), in Belgrade on 21 October.
Fear of electoral manipulation
The election campaign has been accompanied by growing concerns about possible manipulation in Sunday’s vote. The Balkan Service of Radio Free Europe has found that around 500,000 people have registered to vote without a complete address.
REL also found that hundreds of voters have been registered at public facilities, including social work centres, and at homes where that many people could not possibly live. The authorities have rejected these accusations.
Research has also highlighted an increase, ahead of the vote, in the number of people with voting rights in Serbian elections in Bosnia and Herzegovina and in Kosovo. Ethnic Serbs in both countries are considered an important source of support for Vučić’s party.
US senators call for free elections in Serbia
Serbia’s most recent elections, held in 2023, were followed by numerous protests after international observers reported irregularities, including the busing of voters from neighbouring Bosnia and Herzegovina and the intimidation of voters.
A bipartisan group of US senators called on Serbian authorities to ensure equal conditions for all election participants, citing “worrying signs” ahead of the 25 October vote.
A statement published on 21 October by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee referred to reports of illegal surveillance of opposition members and efforts to discredit and obstruct election observation missions.
An independent forensic analysis by local and international experts has confirmed nearly 20 cases of the use of illegal surveillance software since the beginning of 2026.
The opposition and students accuse the authorities of carrying out this surveillance, while government officials deny they are spying on their opponents.
Change of power, continuity on Kosovo
The race between Vučić’s SNS and the Student List is expected to be close, but polls give different results.
Faktor Plus puts Vučić’s list ahead, with 48.6 percent against 37.1 percent for the students. Meanwhile, the Serbian political analysis and polling platform NSPM gives the advantage to the latter, with 44.4 percent against 41.7 percent.
For Kosovo, however, a change of power in Belgrade would not necessarily mean a change in its stance on Kosovo’s statehood. As the students’ positions on foreign policy also show, opposition to Kosovo’s independence remains common ground between the two blocs.
In May, the student movement made this stance concrete in a memorandum, in which it described Kosovo as an “inalienable and constituent part” of Serbia.
Kosovo Serbs between Vučić’s list and the student list
According to Marko Savković, associate of the Belgrade Centre for International and Security Affairs, opposition to Kosovo’s statehood did not begin with Vučić and is unlikely to end with him. He assesses that the political space for a fundamentally different approach to Kosovo’s status remains very limited.
“When it comes to opposing the very statehood of Kosovo as a concept, this is certainly state policy, and some continuity can be expected here, whoever is in power in Serbia. Political options that accept the de facto situation, because Kosovo de facto is a state, are few; they are on the political margins,” Savković says for Radio Free Europe’s Expose programme. /Ekrem Idrizi, REL/