Student-backed election winners demand sweeping resignations in Serbia

Serbia's victorious student-led movement has called for top figures in the police, intelligence and judiciary to stand down, days after ousting ex-president Aleksandar Vučić's party from power. Standing in Pioneers' Park opposite parliament, newly elected MPs on the Student List demanded the immediate dismissal of all police officers who had broken the law, singling out the heads of the police, the BIA security agency and the anti-terror unit. It is not often a European country votes to fully reset its political system overnight, and Serbians have handed the task to a group of novice politicians made up of intellectuals, professors, artists, athletes and as many as 12 medical doctors and surgeons. But the handover of power will take weeks, and the movement is concerned that evidence of possible wrongdoing could be destroyed in that time. Just days ago, the park where the MPs gathered was a tent camp filled with Vučić loyalists outside his office. Within hours of him admitting defeat on Sunday night, the camp was dismantled, and volunteers moved in on Monday morning to clean up. "This is just the first wave of spring cleaning, the new ones are coming now - we are very excited but ready to do it too," said Marija Milovanović, 25, as she scrubbed a park bench. The student movement emerged from protests following the fatal collapse of a railway station canopy that killed 16 people in November 2024 in Novi Sad, Serbia's second largest town. Their aim was to bring those responsible to justice and investigate widespread corruption claims blamed for one of the most tragic events in Serbia's modern history. Under their Student Plan, they promise to "halt the plunder, return stolen goods to the state budget, and invest directly in education and the economy". The purge of Vučić loyalists has already begun at Serbia's state broadcaster RTS, where director Manja Grčić has stepped down. Newly elected MP Mirjana Nikolić said Serbian citizens had the right to truthful information and that RTS had served the government's interests for years. The new MPs have also set their sights on replacing the head of Telekom Srbija, Vladimir Lučić. Acting President Ana Brnabić, a Vučić loyalist, has accused her opponents of choosing "revolutionary justice, not rule of law" and of aiming to shut down "all of the media they dislike". One of the next government's best-known MPs, economist Dejan Šoškić, who served as central bank governor between 2010 and 2012, argues that key reforms need to be in place fast. "In the first six months, I would like to see the media scene liberated, fighting against corruption on the way, the institutions operating as prescribed by laws and a lustration law introduced," he said. By lustration he means banning from public office members of the Vučić government or party apparatus found to have violated the rights of Serbians. Strahinja Subotić of the Belgrade-based European Policy Centre warned that such a purge will take time, as all of Serbia's main pillars of authority have been held by Vučić and his party for so long, and the new administration will ultimately have to "build bridges to the segments that have been operating well in the past". All 141 successful candidates were chosen by students from universities across Serbia through a lengthy, secretive and carefully crafted process, and tasked with implementing the movement's plan for a complete rebuild of the country. Radomir Saičić, a professor of organic chemistry at the University of Belgrade, said that while practical mechanisms would be developed on the go, the new MPs would stick to the students' 1,200-page plan. "Parliament is making decisions, but since this change was led by students' efforts, we would highly value their opinion and work closely with them," he said. The election winners have no obvious leader and face complex challenges, including Serbia's balancing act on the international stage. Serbia is an EU candidate that also maintains close relations with Russia, and has not imposed sanctions on Moscow since the start of its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, in return receiving preferential gas prices and Vladimir Putin's public endorsement of Vučić. The EU has welcomed the Student List victory and promised to back reforms to the rule of law, media freedom and the fight against corruption, but EU integration occupies a strikingly minor place in the students' manifesto, which describes the bloc merely as Serbia's "most important economic partner". "Serbia had its own experience with sanctions in the 1990s and we know that they mostly harm ordinary people and do not affect policies of a state," said Šoškić, referring to UN sanctions imposed during the wars in former Yugoslavia. The new government's initial focus will most likely be on domestic reform, with presidential elections due in December. Vučić is legally barred from running for a third term as president, but he has promised that his defeated Serbian Progressive Party will fight back: "We will beat them much faster than they can even imagine."