Serbia votes as students seek to unseat Vucic in snap election

Serbia holds a snap parliamentary election on October 25 that Aleksandar Vucic called after resigning as president in September to run for prime minister. Polls open at 7 a.m. and close at 8 p.m. local time, with first results expected about two hours later. The vote is a test of whether Vucic's Serbian Progressive Party (SNS), in power since 2012, can extend its grip on power against a student-led movement that grew out of protests after the collapse of a railway station canopy in Novi Sad in November 2024 killed 16 people. The main challenger, the Student List–Students Win, fields largely inexperienced candidates and campaigns on rule of law and anti-corruption. An Ipsos poll put the SNS at 47% and the students at 40%, while other polls showed the students leading. Vucic and the SNS deny accusations of repression, corruption and spying, and say the students are funded by foreign agents, a charge the students dismiss. Vucic's office and the Interior Ministry did not respond to requests for comment.

Where accounts differ. Al Jazeera describes the parliamentary vote as a test of Vucic's 14-year rule and the Reuters report as a contest with a tight race in polls, while Reuters alone reports that polls differ, with some showing the students ahead of the SNS.

Al Jazeera EnglishThe Straits Times

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