Serbian opposition draws tens of thousands in Belgrade before Sunday's vote

Tens of thousands of supporters of Serbia's student-backed Student List gathered in central Belgrade on Thursday evening for the movement's final campaign rally before Sunday's parliamentary election, three days before voters decide whether to end President Aleksandar Vucic's party's 14-year hold on power.

Supporters marched through the capital before converging on Slavija Square, where organisers held a rally titled "Victory Calling." The independent monitoring group Archive of Public Assemblies estimated that about 150,000 people attended, Austrian newspapers Tiroler Tageszeitung and Salzburger Nachrichten reported, citing AFP.

The Student List is contesting Sunday's election under ballot number three, seeking to end the rule of Vucic's right-wing populist Serbian Progressive Party (SNS), in power since 2012. Vucic stepped down as president in late September, clearing the way for the snap election, and is now running for the post of prime minister, a role he held for three years before becoming president.

The protest movement that built the Student List grew out of demonstrations over the collapse of a railway station canopy in Novi Sad in November 2024, which killed 16 people. The protests, led mainly by students, later broadened into wider criticism of the government and of corruption in the country, Tiroler Tageszeitung reported.

Marija Nedeljkovic Radic, 47, told AFP she had come to support the Student List because "the young people finally gave me hope that it's possible to live in a normal country," adding, "For the first time in my life, I truly believe it's possible."

Speaking at his own campaign rally in a Belgrade sports hall on Thursday evening, Vucic described the protest movement as a foreign-funded attempt to overthrow the government. "Let us never forget how they tried to overthrow our state," he told supporters, according to Tiroler Tageszeitung, urging them to "go out and defeat them."

Opponents of the government say the election campaign has been marked by intimidation, arrests and the misuse of public funds, Tiroler Tageszeitung reported. Political scientist Dusan Vucicevic of the University of Belgrade told AFP he expects the Student List to win more than 40% of the vote, which would be the best result for an opposition grouping since the SNS came to power in 2012. No reliable forecasts of the result are available, the newspaper said.