Aleksandar Vucic announced his defeat in Serbia’s closely watched snap parliamentary elections on Sunday night. He stated that preliminary results based on a stratified sample showed his list had lost. The leader of the Serbian Progressive Party’s "United Serbia" electoral list told reporters at 9:30 pm that the opposition Student List was leading. According to CRTA, the Student List won 51.5 per cent of the vote, while Vucic’s list took 40.2 per cent. These preliminary results suggest the Student List will hold between 135 and 140 seats, compared to 105 for the ruling SNS. I see this as the most significant electoral challenge the SNS has faced in 14 years because it stems from the student-led protest movement that emerged following the November 2024 Novi Sad railway station disaster. Vucic claimed the result was "a verification of a revolution" involving the US’s "deep state." Radomir Saicic, a Student List candidate, said the results showed the list was leading convincingly at all polling stations and described the outcome as "a victory for the belief that Serbia can and must be different."
Election day chaos and irregularities
Voter turnout reached 64.9 per cent by 6 pm. This is an increase of nearly 13 percentage points over the 51.93 per cent turnout during the 2023 parliamentary elections. I find the reported irregularities throughout the day to be a total failure. CRTA programme director Rasa Nedeljkov reported irregularities involving the obstruction of polling station committee members and pressure on voters. Specifically, CRTA documented ballot photographing in 80 per cent of the monitored polling stations in Belgrade. While RIK president Vladimir Dimitrijevic described the incidents as "mostly minor," I find the violence in Pancevo and Pavlovac much more serious. Prosecutors in Pancevo launched an investigation into a fight involving masked individuals. In Pavlovac, police arrested two suspects after attackers targeted two journalists while they were reporting. I also saw the troubling scene in Pioneers Park, where police allowed groups of masked men to enter the "Cacilend" camp while a BIRN journalist was denied access. The hooded men in black eventually left the Pioneers Park area after Vucic conceded his defeat on Sunday night.
