Serbia Votes as Vučić Faces Students, Chekhov's Rifle, and the Threat of Actually Being Held Accountable

Serbia is holding elections, and Aleksandar Vučić - the man who has dominated the country's politics for 12 years - is facing an unexpectedly serious challenge from a grassroots student movement. The result is a contest between a strongman with all the levers of state and a decentralised group of academics, professionals, and farmers who have somehow built a genuine political alternative. It's like a political science experiment, except the lab is the entire country.

Vučić, for his part, has maintained close ties with Russia despite the full-scale invasion of Ukraine - a position that puts him in the company of ousted Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbán and his loyal Slovak ally Robert Fico. Last year, Vučić and Fico even controversially joined the Russian Victory Parade in Moscow. He remains a vocal advocate of "dialogue" with Russia, which he believes to be "a rational, pragmatic" approach to foreign policy. He regularly warns that Europe's current trajectory makes a third world war "inevitable" and is a stern critic of what he sees as dangerous military buildup across the continent.

In a recent interview with Russian media personality Ksenia Sobchak, Vučić offered a theatrical metaphor: "It's like in Chekhov's plays: if there's a rifle hanging on the wall in the first act, that rifle will fire in the third act." This is the kind of quote that sounds profound until you remember that Chekhov's rifle is a narrative device, not a foreign policy doctrine.

Vučić has repeatedly rejected any suggestion of imposing sanctions on Russia given the close energy, economic, and trade ties between the two nations. In July, he travelled to Kyiv to take part in a summit of leaders from south-eastern Europe and declined to sign its conclusions calling for support for Ukraine and pressure on Russia. But hosting Zelenskyy in Belgrade in August, Vučić publicly backed Ukraine's aspirations to join the EU - despite Serbia's own process being very much frozen.

Serbia is also believed to have exported hundreds of millions of dollars worth of ammunition to western buyers, which somehow later found its way to Ukraine - despite Belgrade's repeated denials of any involvement in the war. The phrase "somehow" is doing a lot of heavy lifting there.

Perhaps reflecting the general consensus on the issue - 80% of Serbs opposed sanctions in 2022, 64% in 2023 - the Student List have also pledged in their manifesto to retain "the traditional partnership" with Russia, and oppose any measures against Moscow. But they said in their programme they would "adhere to the international legal position of respecting the territorial integrity" of other countries, including Ukraine, and would "advocate for an end for military conflicts" - whatever that means in practice. It's the kind of diplomatic language that keeps everyone happy and no one informed.

The thorny issue of Serbia's relationship with Kosovo remains generally highly relevant here. Both Russia and Ukraine do not recognise Kosovo, and Moscow's strong UN position with its security council veto is particularly helpful in blocking any attempt to challenge the current legal situation. There is also a practical element: in recent years, Belgrade has also welcomed many Russian entrepreneurs looking for a new base for their headquarters, boosting the local economy.

Serbia has been a candidate country since 2012, with some technical progress made in the last 15 years - but only two "chapters" have been actually closed. The last "milestone" marked on the EU's website dates to 2021, showing the process has been effectively frozen for the last five years. The European Commission's latest rule of law report highlighted several concerns about the country's justice system, anti-corruption framework, media freedom, and institutional checks and balances. Belgrade also regularly faces criticism over its close ties with Russia and China.

On top of that, in September, the EU strongly condemned the hero's funeral granted to Ratko Mladić, a Serbian general convicted of orchestrating the worst massacre in Europe since the second world war. The EU's enlargement commissioner Marta Kos said "the glorification surrounding [Mladić's] death is incompatible with the values on which the EU path is built." In July, Vučić conceded that Serbia was unlikely to enter the bloc in the coming years.

But if you are expecting the Student List to be unapologetically pro-EU, think again. Their manifesto on foreign policy includes a very cautiously phrased position on the issue and does not include a clear commitment on the EU membership, primarily stressing the bloc's importance as Serbia's "most important economic partner." But if you know what to look out for, it does include a pledge to make a technical step in the right direction: the students say they would want Serbia to "achieve IBAR status through significant progress in the area of justice and fundamental rights." IBAR - Interim Benchmark Assessment Report - is essentially the European Commission's finding on whether a country meets accession criteria set out in cluster 1 on fundamentals on democratic institutions, public administration reform, and the rule of law. Montenegro - widely seen as the most advanced candidate country - got there in 2024; Albania - in May 2026.

This sort of vague commitment perhaps makes sense given the List's much broader focus on deeply reforming the state to get rid of what they see as corruption and systemic injustices. For clerks reading the manifesto in Brussels, it will be enough of a signal to get their hopes up.

Florian Bieber, professor of politics at University of Graz, explained: "On many divisive issues, like EU integration, there's no consensus in Serbia. But you don't need to do much, because Vučić hasn't done much. If the Student List doesn't do much in a year or two on that issue, but makes Serbia more democratic, it actually achieves a lot more for Serbia and EU integration than what Vučić has done in 10 years, because it's not about the formal negotiations, but it's about creating good laws and good functional institutions."

For what it's worth, the EU was pretty cautious in its language in the build-up to the vote, stressing that it is "closely following" the election, and insisting it needed to be "free, fair, and transparent" and "in line with European and international standards." If the result is very close or contested, many will look out for the EU's reaction.

The roots of the student movement trace back to the 2024 Novi Sad disaster, where 16 people were killed after an outdoor concrete canopy collapsed at a train station in Serbia's second largest city. Inquiries into the causes of the incident revealed slipshod construction along with allegations of fraud and corruption, prompting relentless mass protests demanding transparency and accountability about the incident. The demonstrations - primarily organised by students - were frequently met with violence, persecution and extensive surveillance by the authorities, with Vučić repeatedly floating unsubstantiated claims of foreign interference. When Belgrade students blocked a road in a vigil for the victims three weeks after the disaster, they were attacked by a pro-government mob and the protest movement went nationwide. The student movement eventually morphed into a more political - but not partisan - one.

"Unable to crush the students by force, division or denigration, Vučić gambled, announcing his resignation as president and calling snap elections, in the apparent hope of catching the students off guard, but they responded by improvising a democratic experiment. The 250 candidates were mostly nominated by university faculties (there are more than 160 doctorates among them) with a sprinkling of farmers and other professions, and each candidate was subject to approval by plenary sessions of the student protests."

In a highly unusual development, however, the group has remained decentralised. For starters, in sharp contrast with Péter Magyar's Tisza in Hungary, it has no single leader. 56-year-old cardiologist Ilija Srdanović appears at the top of the ballot, but it is far from obvious if he would be the first pick as a potential future PM. Instead, the movement focuses on big collective efforts, with large-scale marches across the country and door to door canvassing, including deep in Vučić's base of rural voters and among typically sidelined minorities. It remains to be seen how effective - and disciplined - they would be if they actually succeeded in getting into government. Rewiring the state with all its deeply embedded structural issues after more than a decade of increasingly authoritarian rule would no doubt pose numerous challenges.

As they mount a challenge against Vučić, the students appear to sometimes play on some of the themes of his rule to appeal to his disillusioned voters. Their political manifesto is very carefully constructed to tiptoe around the trickiest issues, particularly in foreign policy, including on Russia and the EU. But eventually they would have to face them head on.

Ivan Đurić of the Center for Research, Transparency and Accountability (CRTA) notes that the students adopted lots of national symbols - including heavy use of flags and the historically-controversial three-finger sign to now denote their number on the electoral ballot - in their rhetoric, but stresses they gave them "a new meaning." "Before student movement, if you saw 100 Serbian flags on a protest, you would [think these are] some extreme nationalists, which is also not normal … But they have shifted the paradigm in this sense … and after years of nationalistic propaganda, it is impossible to expect some kind of extremely liberal, completely pro-European, anti-Russian, peace-making party will get 40%. Not a chance. But the people who are on this list, … you can imagine them at a table with any partner in the region."

Marta Szpala of the Polish Academy of Science and BiEPAG research group goes further and contrasts the Serbian model with disruptive and often violent protests movements in western Europe. "[The Student List shows] an alternative model: a protest movement that has sustained mobilisation for two years, built a genuine political alternative, and established oversight of its electoral process, standing a chance of bringing about real change. Serbia may be about to show that achieving change simply requires consistency, perseverance, and the building of broad-based alliances."

Aleksandar Vučić's SNS anchors the "United Serbia" list. The party relies on control of the public purse, favourable media coverage and strong nationalist backing, but its campaign has been overshadowed by accusations of systemic voter manipulation. The Student List eschews party hierarchies or a single figurehead, preferring locally respected academics and professionals, and operates through university networks. Its quickfire, humorous campaign has mobilised large numbers of disengaged voters. That means Serbia's traditional opposition parties have been largely marginalised, with their collective support falling from 30% to 10-15%. Some parties have switched allegiance to the Student List. Others, such as European Serbia, may not clear the 3% electoral threshold. Meanwhile, Serbia's rightwing, nationalist bloc is riven with disagreements and has been further weakened by the unexpected withdrawal of the We the Power of the People party over allegations of Russian influence. Some of the nationalist vote may switch to the SNS.

Serbia's former president and now prime ministerial candidate (again) Aleksandar Vučić rose to prominence in the 1990s as a radical nationalist, who supported the policies of Serbian expansion and ethnic cleansing led by Slobodan Milošević, who died of a heart attack in detention in The Hague during his trial on charges of genocide and crimes against humanity committed in Croatia, Bosnia and Kosovo. He served as Milošević's information minister throughout the Kosovo conflict. His Serbian Progressive Party, or SNS, has been in government since 2012. He first spent three years as the prime minister from 2014, before switching to the role of the president in 2017. Unable to run for the third term, he resigned from the post in September, and now wants to lead the government again. As president, Vučić has not emulated his predecessor's militarism, but he has maintained his nationalist playbook in domestic politics, dismissing the opposition as stooges of unspecified foreign powers. He maintains close ties with Putin's Russia and Xi's China, which regularly gets him criticised by the EU.