Belgrade: The counting finished on Monday. The Student List took 52.54% of the vote, based on 8,077 of 8,392 polling stations processed, Serbia's Republic Election Commission said. Aleksandar Vucic's United Serbia list had 39.29%.
The projections give the movement about 140 seats in the 250-member parliament, comfortably past the 126 needed for a majority. United Serbia is expected to get 103. Turnout was 68.78%, the highest in more than 30 years.
Vucic conceded on Sunday night, about 90 minutes after polls closed. "It is now clear that we have lost and the Students' List has won," he told supporters, while blaming independent media and alleged foreign interference for the result.
The movement he lost to did not exist as a party two years ago. It grew out of protests after 16 people were killed in November 2024, when a concrete canopy collapsed at the railway station in Novi Sad. Students blamed corruption in the renovation work, and the demonstrations widened into a campaign against the capture of institutions. At its peak it drew hundreds of thousands onto the streets, and it met police violence and detentions along the way.
What won on Sunday was an unusual political vehicle. University students shaped the Student List, but none of them stood. Its candidates were little-known professionals — experts, athletes, farmers and artists — a deliberate contrast to Vucic's one-man rule. They cycled and walked through rural Serbia, his traditional strongholds, to reach voters.
The mood in Belgrade changed at once. Crowds took down the fences and tents of a loyalist camp that had stood in a central park for over a year. Dijana Hrka, mother of one of the Novi Sad victims, told N1 television, sobbing, that she had waited two years for the moment.
European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen congratulated the movement, saying the people of Serbia had turned out in record numbers, and offered support on rule of law, media freedom and the fight against corruption.
The work now is arithmetic and appointments. Parliament must be constituted within 30 days of the final result, and a government formed within 90 days after that. Ilija Srdanovic, a cardiologist and professor at the University of Novi Sad who led the campaign, is seen as the most likely prime minister. The Student List has promised anti-corruption legislation and judicial independence, and the clear majority means it will not have to negotiate a coalition to get them.
Independent monitors still logged irregularities on polling day, including photographed ballots that suggested pressure on voters.