Overview

• Organizers put turnout at around 500,000 on June 28 in the largest demonstration since protests began last November
• Protesters, led by university students and backed by professors and farmers, demanded President Aleksandar Vucic’s resignation along with snap presidential and parliamentary votes
• Vucic branded the movement as foreign-backed terrorism and has repeatedly refused to move up the next elections scheduled for 2027
• In the run-up to the weekend rally, police detained a dozen activists on charges of plotting to overthrow the government and suspended rail and bus services into the capital
• The mass movement traces back to a November 1 canopy collapse at Novi Sad station that killed 16 and exposed alleged public-works corruption