Serbia's student opposition wins majority; Vučić predicts Russia sanctions by spring

Serbia's student-backed opposition swept to a parliamentary majority on Sunday, forcing Aleksandar Vučić to concede defeat and prompting him to predict that the incoming government would impose sanctions on Russia within months.

With preliminary estimates showing the Student List winning between 135 and 140 seats in the 250-member assembly against roughly 105 for Vučić's United Serbia coalition, the opposition cleared the 126-seat threshold required to govern alone. Final results were not yet available when Vučić spoke at his Serbian Progressive Party headquarters in Belgrade.

"By March or April, you will have sanctions imposed on the Russian Federation," Vučić said, according to RFE/RL. His forecast clashes directly with the Student List's pre-election foreign-policy platform, published in September, which stated that Serbia would continue opposing sanctions against Russia, citing the country's own experience with restrictive measures.

The election outcome therefore does not establish that Belgrade will change its sanctions policy. Vučić's remarks were a prediction about his opponents' intentions, not an announcement by the projected winners.

Vučić alleged that unnamed European countries and an "American deep state" hostile to President Donald Trump had backed the opposition's victory.

The movement that defeated him emerged from protests triggered by the November 2024 collapse of a railway station canopy in Novi Sad, which killed 16 people. Demonstrators demanded accountability over suspected corruption linked to the disaster, and students organised a parliamentary slate drawn from outside the established parties.

The Student List's leading candidate, cardiologist Ilija Srdanović, said the movement's next task would be building a state governed by the rule of law. Supporters celebrated in Belgrade, Novi Sad and other cities after Vučić conceded.

Under Vučić, Serbia had refused to join Western sanctions over Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine while simultaneously pursuing EU membership.