Students and supporters of Serbia’s student electoral list have begun walking from towns across the country towards Belgrade for a final campaign rally on October 22, ahead of parliamentary elections on October 25.
The marches are the culmination of nearly two years of protests sparked by the collapse of a exterior canopy at a newly built railway station in Novi Sad in November 2024, which killed 16 people. Demonstrators initially demanded an investigation into the renovation works and government contracts behind the project, but their demands soon broadened to include elections and action against corruption.
Student activists have kept the protests alive through university blockades, strikes, road blockades and rallies, building a nationwide movement against a government that has been in power for more than a decade. Now they are taking their campaign to the ballot box, with a list of academics and public figures who have supported their cause.
The student list, running under the name “Students Win” (Studenti pobeđuju), has organised walking routes from eastern, western and northern Serbia to converge on Slavija Square in central Belgrade for a rally called “Victory Calls” on October 22.
A group of students and citizens left Zaječar in eastern Serbia on October 16, while another column departed from Gornji Milanovac on October 18. Further groups are due to leave from Valjevo and Šabac on October 19, followed by a column from Novi Sad on October 20.
The marches recall earlier journeys organised by the movement, including a walk by Belgrade students to Novi Sad in January 2025 to commemorate the victims of the station collapse. Students have also cycled and run to European destinations to draw attention to Serbia’s political crisis and take their demands to European institutions.
Over the weekend, students and supporters also cycled through Belgrade’s suburbs and surrounding towns as part of a three-day campaign called the “Weekend Circle of the Troika”. The campaign combines public events with door-to-door visits, as students and candidates seek to discuss the election and their programme with voters in communities that have received less attention during the protests.
The October 25 vote is expected to pose the biggest electoral challenge yet to the ruling Serbian Progressive Party (SNS), led by Aleksandar Vučić, who resigned as president in September to campaign as the party’s candidate for prime minister.
The student list is headed by Ilija Srdanović, a cardiologist and university professor who was little known to the public before the election was called. Its candidates include academics, doctors, engineers and artists, reflecting the movement’s rejection of established politicians and conventional party politics. Its 11-point programme focuses on institutional reform, judicial independence, anti-corruption measures and greater transparency in public procurement.
The movement is seeking to turn the broad support generated by the protests into electoral gains against a party that has dominated Serbian politics for more than a decade. To bring together voters with different political views, it has focused on corruption and institutional reform while steering clear of ideological divisions and contentious foreign policy issues.
Srdanović has called for a peaceful end to the election process. “We call for the election processes to end peacefully and with dignity, to elect a new government in Serbia peacefully on the 25th,” he said, according to Nova.rs on October 18.
The campaign is unfolding amid concerns raised by opposition parties and civil society groups over unequal media access, pressure on public-sector employees, the use of state resources, intimidation of voters and possible irregularities in the electoral process.