Serbia’s snap election: Can Vucic outmanoeuvre the student revolt?

 For weeks, the streets of Serbia were teeming with young people rallying against the government. At the height of the protests in March 2025, more than 100,000 took to the streets.

The student movement had called for early elections for nearly two years, and President Aleksandar Vucic, who resigned on Sunday, finally heeded their call earlier this month. He announced snap parliamentary elections for October 25.

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With the elections originally not due until December 2027, the early vote is seen as an attempt by governing populists to cling to power despite widespread discontent.

Students and anti-government demonstrators light the flashlights of their mobile phones during a protest, which became a national movement for change following the deadly November 2024 Novi Sad railway station roof collapse, in Belgrade, Serbia, March 15, 2025 [Igor Pavicevic/Reuters]

Vucic is vying for the prime minister’s post, a role he has held before, appearing to yield to protesters’ demands not out of goodwill but in the hopes of ushering in a result that keeps him in office, analysts say.

But experts warn that elections will hardly solve the underlying political tensions gripping the country, triggered after 16 people were killed in 2024 when a concrete canopy collapsed at a railway station. Student protesters blamed the disaster on government negligence and alleged corruption.

The move “is essentially about reducing political risk”, Viktor Stamenkovic, a researcher at Belgrade’s Institute for Political Studies, told Al Jazeera.

“Given the circumstances, the ruling camp is choosing the electoral sequence it considers least dangerous,” he said, referring to Vucic’s Serbian Progressive Party (SNS).