I added the map above to Serbia for you.
Reuters news published October 26, 2026: Celebrations as Serbia waits to see how new leaders will govern. Tens of thousands celebrated in Belgrade and across Serbia after populist leader Aleksandar Vucic stepped down following a landslide win for a student-backed movement. All eyes are on how the new leaders will govern.
France24 news published October 27, 2026: 'They should be afraid': Serbia's student-led victory over Vučić sends warning to 'corrupt' leaders. François Picard welcomes Helena Ivanov, associate research fellow at the Henry Jackson Society, a London-based foreign policy and national security think tank advocating liberal democracy, strong transatlantic alliances, robust Western defence capabilities and the international promotion of democratic institutions. Ivanov describes the election result in Serbia as a historic turning point in the country's politics. After 14 years of Aleksandar Vučić's political dominance, the victory of a student-led movement represents more than a challenge to an entrenched political establishment.
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BBC News, UK local
written by André Rhoden-Paul,Jaroslav Lukiv, and Paul Kirby,Europe digital editor
Monday October 26, 2026
Serbia's long-standing leader Aleksandar Vučić has admitted defeat to a student-led protest movement in snap parliamentary elections.
Celebrations erupted as crowds descended on the centre of Belgrade, Novi Sad and other cities.
The student movement was formed less than two years ago in response to a railway station disaster blamed on corruption and negligence, but fought the election with candidates from a cross-section of Serbian society.
"It is clear we have lost these elections," right-wing populist leader Vučić said as he conceded. With 97% of polling stations counted, Serbia's election commission said the students had won 2.25 million votes and the former ruling party 1.67 million.
The students had secured 52.7% of the vote, while Vučić's Serbian Progressive Party (SNS) was on 39.2%, according to its preliminary figures late on Monday morning.
Vučić had spent two terms as president and could not seek a third term, so was leading his Serbian Progressive Party (SNS) with the aim of returning to the post of prime minister, which he left in 2017.
He called the snap elections after two years of protests triggered by the collapse of a canopy in front of Novi Sad station which killed 16 people.
The Student List's lead candidate Ilija Srdanović told BBC Serbian: "This will be a free state."
He said the anti-corruption movement, which had attracted anti-government voters across Serbia, hoped to "free the country from tyranny".
There were celebrations on the streets of the city, with people dancing and chanting "victory", cars honking, and fireworks set off. "Serbia is free," one student told the BBC. "It's a miracle."
During a celebration speech, Student List candidate Radomir Saicic said Serbians had shown "no obstacle was greater than their will", Reuters reported. "No force can forever overpower a people who have decided to take their destiny into their own hands," he added.
Amid scenes of people dancing in the streets Belgrade, Selena Lebovic said the result was "really fabulous".
"We are all crying, and what to say. We couldn't believe that it would be so easy," she told Reuters.
Vučić made his announcement at the headquarters of his Serbian Progressive Party (SNS) in the capital Belgrade.
The centre of Novi Sad - the northern city that triggered the student-led protests - was crowded. "Everything is going to get better now," David Vasić, one of those celebrating, told BBC Serbian.
The Student List - which has no obvious leaders and whose members are not used to politics - had attracted anti-government voters across Serbia.
It decided to field candidates to the 250-member parliament from across Serbian society including doctors, actors, academics and sports personalities.
"This is not an ordinary election victory, this is an avalanche that has wiped out an authoritarian regime and entire political scene," said Nebojša Vladisavljević, professor of political science at the University of Belgrade.
There were now two big political groups in Serbia, and the Student List had "absolute legitimacy" to govern for the coming years, he told BBC Serbian.
The anti-corruption movement campaigned on a manifesto that included purging officials who broke rules cracking down on protesters, stopping party loyalists from leading public enterprises, and freeing the public broadcaster of political control.
Vučić and the SNS party have repeatedly denied corruption.
Vučić, who backed Serbia's candidacy for the European Union while refusing to impose sanctions on Russia over its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, had pledged to increase pensions and public sector salaries, and investment in state healthcare.
Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov praised Vučić's contribution to relations with Russia and hoped "the new political force" in Belgrade would understand that co-operation with Moscow was in Serbia's interests: "But, as you know, it takes two to tango."
His defeat was welcomed by Hungary's prime minister, Péter Magyar, who said he was delighted to hear from the Student List's leaders "how much strength our victory in April had given them". Magyar's party ended 16 years of Viktor Orbán rule, while Vučić's SNS party had been in power since 2012.
European Commissioner for Enlargement Marta Kos said "a new chapter can begin for Serbia. The door to the EU is open, and we are ready to move forward together".
Earlier in the day, long queues were seen outside polling stations in cities and towns across Serbia.
This was also the case outside booths in a number of countries with sizeable Serbian communities - including Slovenia's capital Ljubljana, Germany's Munich, and Los Angeles and Chicago in the US.
In France, Serbian voters waited in line in heavy rain in Paris.
The election was held amid high tensions across Serbia, with police sealing off streets around the Republic Electoral Commission (RIK) in Belgrade.
Attention will now turn to who will lead the Student List as prime minister. Presidential elections are due to take place in December, with parliament speaker Ana Brnabić currently filling the role in a caretaker capacity.
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BBC News, UK local
written by Aleksandar Miladinović
Thursday October 29, 2026
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 anti-terror unit.
It is not often a European country votes to fully reset its political system overnight, and Serbians have voted to hand 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 students' movement is concerned that evidence of possible wrongdoing could be destroyed in that time.
Just a few days ago, the park they were standing in on Thursday 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 a team of volunteers moved in on Monday morning to clean up the mess.
"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 Serbia's second largest town Novi Sad.
Their desire 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.
They have made some bold promises.
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 RTS had served the interests of the government for years.
The new MPs have also set their sights on replacing the head of Telekom Srbija, Vladimir Lučić.
Vučić loyalist Ana Brnabić, who is currently Serbia's acting president, has accused her opponents of choosing "revolutionary justice, not rule of law," and of aiming to shut down "all of the media they dislike".
But one of the next government's best-known MPs, Dejan Šoškić, 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," said Šoškić, an economist who served as governor of the central bank between 2010 and 2012.
By lustration, he means banning from public office members of the Vučić government or party apparatus who are found to have violated the rights of Serbians.
That kind of purge will take time, as all of Serbia's main pillars of authority have been held by Vučić and his party for so long, warns Strahinja Subotić of Belgrade-based European Policy Centre.
Ultimately, he believes the new administration will 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.
That political agenda took months for a highly diverse group of students to agree to. Now it is up to the equally disparate team of successful candidates to put the plan into practice, rather than the students themselves.
Another prominent figure on the Student List, is Radomir Saičić, a professor of organic chemistry at the University of Belgrade.
"While the practical mechanisms will be developed on the go, the new MPs will stick to the students' 1200-page long and detailed plan," he told the BBC.
"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 promised.
Not only are they newcomers to politics, but Serbia's election winners have no obvious leader and are faced with a series of complex challenges, including taking on the country's highly complex balancing act on the international stage.
Serbia is both a candidate to join the European Union and maintains close relations with Russia. Its bid to join the bloc has long been on the back-burner, while its Western Balkan neighbours press ahead.
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