After improbable election victory, the unconventional grassroots movement says it will prioritise dismissal of corrupt officials

In Belgrade’s Pioneers Park, just across from the national assembly, a small crowd craned their necks to listen. One woman held aloft a placard reading “Love prevailed for the people and Serbia”. With a bouquet of media microphones in front of them, members of the Student List, the direct democracy movement that won an improbable but decisive victory in Sunday’s election, gathered under the trees.

Having spent days bathing in the euphoria of their unexpected triumph, the candidates’ focus was now clear: the cleaning up of the rotten institutions that had increasingly blighted the lives of Serbs over the 14 years of government by the populist leader Aleksandar Vučić and his Serbian Progressive party (SNS). They called for the dismissal of many senior law enforcement officials, among them the chiefs of the criminal police, the paramilitary gendarmerie and an anti-terrorism unit.

Continue reading...

© Photograph: Marko Đurica/Reuters

© Photograph: Marko Đurica/Reuters

© Photograph: Marko Đurica/Reuters

After improbable election victory, the unconventional grassroots movement says it will prioritise dismissal of corrupt officials

In Belgrade’s Pioneers Park, just across from the national assembly, a small crowd craned their necks to listen. One woman held aloft a placard reading “Love prevailed for the people and Serbia”. With a bouquet of media microphones in front of them, members of the Student List, the direct democracy movement that won an improbable but decisive victory in Sunday’s election, gathered under the trees.

Having spent days bathing in the euphoria of their unexpected triumph, the candidates’ focus was now clear: the cleaning up of the rotten institutions that had increasingly blighted the lives of Serbs over the 14 years of government by the populist leader Aleksandar Vučić and his Serbian Progressive party (SNS). They called for the dismissal of many senior law enforcement officials, among them the chiefs of the criminal police, the paramilitary gendarmerie and an anti-terrorism unit.

Continue reading...

© Photograph: Marko Đurica/Reuters

© Photograph: Marko Đurica/Reuters

© Photograph: Marko Đurica/Reuters

Elections are never enough by themselves, but the stunning results from Serbia, Brazil and Hungary have given us hope in dark times

It is undoubtedly too early to declare victory, but the recent electoral defeats of Viktor Orbán, Aleksandar Vučić and Flávio Bolsonaro make me wonder: is 2026 turning out to be the year democracy slowly, but surely, fought back?

Even in Israel, prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s reigning bloc lost its parliamentary majority and saw the spectacular rise of Arab parties. Though the opposition may not be able to form a government yet, it does have the larger parliamentary bloc.

David Van Reybrouck is a Belgian author and philosopher laureate for the Low Countries. He is the author of Against Elections: The Case for Democracy, and the initiator of Democracy27

Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here.

Continue reading...

© Photograph: Andre Coelho/EPA

© Photograph: Andre Coelho/EPA

© Photograph: Andre Coelho/EPA

Some EU leaders courted the authoritarian Vučić regime – they must offer this reborn democracy a future within the union

As polling stations closed across Serbia on Sunday evening, riot police were deploying around the presidency in Belgrade. Many of us feared the worst: massive electoral fraud, a refusal to recognise defeat or outright violence. After nearly 15 years of Aleksandar Vučić’s increasingly authoritarian rule, a peaceful transfer of power seemed implausible.

I had good reason to feel afraid. I am co-founder of an annual conference on the security and foreign policy challenges shaping the western Balkans, and sit on the international advisory committee of a civil society thinktank, the Belgrade Centre for Security Policy. Such work would be uncontroversial in most countries seeking European Union membership. Under Vučić’s regime, it was anything but.

Continue reading...

© Photograph: Marko Dimic/ZUMA Press Wire/Shutterstock

© Photograph: Marko Dimic/ZUMA Press Wire/Shutterstock

© Photograph: Marko Dimic/ZUMA Press Wire/Shutterstock

After two years of protests, a student-led movement has defeated Serbia’s authoritarian leader, Aleksander Vučić, at the ballot box. But can a leaderless movement govern a country? Send your comments and questions to tif.questions@theguardian.com

Serbia’s political landscape has been upended. On Sunday, record numbers of people went to the polls and voted to end the 12-year rule of Aleksandar Vučić. And who did they back instead? A list of candidates, half of whom have PhDs, put forward by student activists whose protests have rocked the Balkan country for the past two years.

Helen Pidd speaks to the Serbian-American journalist Ana Milosavljevic, the student activist Tara Blagojević and the MP-to-be Milica Jovanović about how the Student List managed to defeat Vučić’s increasingly authoritarian regime.

Continue reading...

© Photograph: Marko Đurica/Reuters

© Photograph: Marko Đurica/Reuters

© Photograph: Marko Đurica/Reuters

A movement that began in outrage has delivered remarkable election upset, showing that change is possible and prompting questions over what comes next

• Don’t get This Is Europe delivered to your inbox? Sign up here

In April of last year, dozens of students set off from Serbia, intent on making it to Strasbourg, France on bicycles. The aim of the arduous, 13-day transcontinental journey was simple: to make their voices heard in Europe and beyond.

In their home city of Novi Sad, students had been holding near-daily protests after a deadly roof collapse at the city’s main railway station. As their push for accountability and justice spread across the country, it was met with baton-wielding police, teargas and a political class that branded these young people as traitors.

Continue reading...

© Photograph: Marko Drobnjaković/AP

© Photograph: Marko Drobnjaković/AP

© Photograph: Marko Drobnjaković/AP

A movement that began in outrage has delivered remarkable election upset, showing that change is possible and prompting questions over what comes next

• Don’t get This Is Europe delivered to your inbox? Sign up here

In April of last year, dozens of students set off from Serbia, intent on making it to Strasbourg, France on bicycles. The aim of the arduous, 13-day transcontinental journey was simple: to make their voices heard in Europe and beyond.

In their home city of Novi Sad, students had been holding near-daily protests after a deadly roof collapse at the city’s main railway station. As their push for accountability and justice spread across the country, it was met with baton-wielding police, teargas and a political class that branded these young people as traitors.

Continue reading...

© Photograph: Marko Drobnjaković/AP

© Photograph: Marko Drobnjaković/AP

© Photograph: Marko Drobnjaković/AP

The long-serving leader of Serbia, Aleksandar Vučić, has conceded defeat, ushering in a seismic political shift after a historic election that pitted ​the increasingly authoritarian leader against a student-led movement that had spent two years protesting against his government. As news broke that Vučić’s 12 years in power had come to an end, celebrations erupted on the streets of Belgrade and other cities. But how did we get here - and what happens now? The Guardian's Europe live correspondent, Jakub Krupa, explains

• ‘It’s the smell of freedom’: Belgrade cleans up after Student List triumph

• As students we never sought power – here’s how we reclaimed Serbia

Continue reading...

© Photograph: Guardian

© Photograph: Guardian

© Photograph: Guardian

Supporters of the opposition movement that won Sunday’s election stormed the offices of a pro-government tabloid. Another news outlet apologized for years of “one-sided” coverage.

© Marko Djurica/Reuters

Brazil is not the only country to have had dramatic election results this weekend. In Serbia, longtime leader Aleksandar Vucic lost a historic election that brought down his government. William Brangham discussed the results with Heather Conley.

Vucic on Sunday blamed his defeat on foreign interference.

“It is clear that we have lost these elections,” Aleksandar Vucic said in a surprisingly early speech congratulating his opponents.

© Armin Durgut/Associated Press

It was a seismic political shift in the Balkan country where Vucic, who had been endorsed by Russian President Vladimir Putin and who denounced the student movement as a foreign-led attempt to unseat him, led with virtually absolute power for 14 years.