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Serbia’s student-backed election winners have called for senior figures in the police, intelligence services and judiciary to resign, days after ousting the party of former president Aleksandar Vučić, according to the BBC.
Speaking in Pioneers’ Park, across from parliament, newly elected MPs on the Student List demanded the immediate dismissal of police officers who had broken the law. They singled out the heads of the police, the BIA security agency and the anti-terror unit.
The movement has entrusted a group of political newcomers—including intellectuals, professors, artists, athletes and as many as 12 doctors and surgeons—with the task of reshaping the country’s political system. The transfer of power is expected to take weeks, and the students are concerned that evidence of possible wrongdoing could be destroyed in the meantime.
Only days earlier, the park had hosted a tent camp of Vučić supporters outside his office. The camp was dismantled within hours of his conceding defeat on Sunday night, and volunteers began clearing the site on Monday morning.
“This is just the first wave of spring cleaning, the new ones are coming now — we are very excited but ready to do it too,” said Marija Milovanović, 25, as she scrubbed a park bench.
Student movement pledges institutional and media reforms
The movement grew out of protests after a railway station canopy collapsed in Novi Sad, Serbia’s second-largest city, killing 16 people in November 2024. Protesters called for those responsible to be brought to justice and for widespread corruption allegations connected to the tragedy to be investigated.
Under its Student Plan, the movement has pledged to “halt the plunder, return stolen goods to the state budget, and invest directly in education and the economy”.
Changes have already begun at state broadcaster RTS, where director Manja Grčić has stepped down. Newly elected MP Mirjana Nikolić said citizens had the right to truthful information and that RTS had served government interests for years. The new MPs have also called for the replacement of Telekom Srbija chief Vladimir Lučić.
Ana Brnabić, a Vučić ally who is currently Serbia’s acting president, accused her opponents of choosing “revolutionary justice, not rule of law” and seeking to shut down “all of the media they dislike”.
Dejan Šoškić, one of the best-known MPs in the incoming government, said key reforms should be introduced quickly. “In the first six months, I would like to see the media scene liberated, fighting against corruption on the way, the institutions operating as prescribed by laws and a lustration law introduced,” said Šoškić, an economist who was governor of the central bank from 2010 to 2012.
He said lustration would mean barring from public office members of the Vučić government or party apparatus found to have violated Serbians’ rights. Strahinja Subotić of the Belgrade-based European Policy Centre cautioned that such a purge would take time, since Vučić and his party had held Serbia’s main institutions for a long period. The new administration would ultimately need to “build bridges to the segments that have been operating well in the past”, he said.
New MPs face domestic and foreign policy challenges
Students at universities across Serbia selected all 141 successful candidates through a lengthy, secretive and carefully designed process, assigning them the task of carrying out the movement’s plan to rebuild the country. The diverse student group spent months agreeing on the agenda; implementation now falls to the elected candidates.
Radomir Saičić, a professor of organic chemistry at the University of Belgrade and another prominent figure on the Student List, told the BBC that MPs would follow the students’ detailed, 1,200-page plan, while developing practical mechanisms as they went. “Parliament is making decisions, but since this change was led by students’ efforts, we would highly value their opinion and work closely with them,” he said.
The election winners have no obvious leader and face complex challenges, including Serbia’s foreign policy balancing act. The country is an EU candidate and maintains close relations with Russia, while its bid to join the bloc has long been on the back burner as neighbouring Western Balkan countries move ahead.
The EU swiftly welcomed the Student List’s victory and pledged support for its plans on the rule of law, media freedom and fighting corruption. But EU integration has a limited place in the students’ election manifesto, which calls the bloc Serbia’s “most important economic partner”.
Belgrade has for years balanced its foreign policy between the EU and eastern partners Russia and China. Serbia has not imposed sanctions on Moscow since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. The country has received preferential gas prices, which have helped maintain domestic stability, and Russian President Vladimir Putin publicly endorsed Vučić’s bid to remain in power.
The students have not indicated plans to change course, and a foreign policy shift may not be a priority. “Serbia had it own experience with sanctions in the 1990s and we know that they mostly harm ordinary people and do not affect policies of a state,” Šoškić said, referring to UN sanctions imposed during the wars in former Yugoslavia.
The incoming government is likely to focus first on domestic reforms, with presidential elections due in December. Vučić is legally barred from seeking a third presidential term, but has said his defeated Serbian Progressive Party will fight back: “We will beat them much faster than they can even imagine.”
