Overview
- Polling stations opened and Serbians began voting on Sunday, October 25, in a snap parliamentary election called by Aleksandar Vucic after nearly two years of student protests.
- The contest has coalesced around Vucic's Serbian Progressive Party and a Students' List built from a largely leaderless protest movement that put forward about 250 largely unknown professionals as candidates.
- Students mobilised large numbers of volunteers to monitor polling and ran a nationwide campaign focused on rooting out corruption and improving schools while Vucic campaigned on pensions, investment and stability.
- Domestic and international groups warned that the campaign environment showed signs of unfairness, citing tight media control, detentions, reports of surveillance and public statements by 24 civil society organisations raising election integrity concerns.
- Analysts say a clear Students' List win would mark a major shift for Serbia and could affect its EU path while a narrow or disputed outcome risks protests or instability and will be closely watched across Europe.