Serbia votes in election pitting longtime leader against student movement

Serbians voted Sunday in snap parliamentary elections that pitted Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic's Serbian Progressive Party against the student-led movement, the Students' List. The vote followed nearly two years of protests triggered by the 2024 collapse of a canopy at Novi Sad railway station that killed 16 people, which was widely blamed on corruption. Turnout was reported at nearly 65 percent by 6:00 pm, the highest in more than three decades, according to election officials. Students' List candidate Radomir Saicic said preliminary results showed the movement convincingly leading, and Vucic conceded defeat less than two hours after polls closed, according to The Daily Star and The Hindu. Vucic said preliminary figures suggested the movement could win 135 to 140 of 250 seats, and blamed foreign powers for the result. EU chief Ursula von der Leyen and Hungarian Prime Minister Peter Magyar congratulated the movement. Pre-election polls had shown a tight race.

Where accounts differ. Al Jazeera reported pre-election polls showing a tight race and Vucic's party ahead in one poll, while The Daily Star and The Hindu reported post-vote results and Vucic's concession, and Al Jazeera's pre-vote coverage does not report the outcome.

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