For many Serbians, Sunday’s parliamentary elections will feel like a profound novelty. It might be the country’s seventh such snap or scheduled vote since 2012, but, for the first time in 14 years, the final result will not be easy to predict.
Aleksandar Vučić is facing a completely unfamiliar political challenge. None of the elections since his Serbian Progressive Party (SNS) first entered government have featured a genuinely credible, unified alternative proposition for voters. Whether serving as president or prime minister over the past decade and a half, Vučić has been the undisputed man in charge, tightening his grip on power and taking control of so many disparate aspects of government that critics have long mockingly dubbed him “Superman.” Meanwhile, the state-aligned and Vučić-friendly domestic media has eagerly embraced the label, portraying him for years as the tireless, sleepless protector of the Serbian people who single-handedly drives the nation forward.
This time, however, the political landscape has shifted dramatically beneath his feet. In an unprecedented move, most of Serbia’s traditional opposition parties have wisely stepped aside to allow a clear, uncrowded run for the Student List—a powerful grassroots anti-corruption movement that has emerged organically to field candidates directly against the established political elite. Demonstrating a political tactical wisdom that has surprised seasoned analysts, the students have deliberately avoided putting themselves forward as a potential governing cabinet. Instead, they have nominated a slate of uncontroversial, highly respected academics and elite athletes, alongside a carefully chosen cadre of well-qualified economists and engineers.
At the very top of this insurgent candidate list is heart surgeon Ilija Srdanović. Should the Student List pull off a historic upset on Sunday, Srdanović stands as the most likely figure to step into the role of prime minister. On the grueling campaign trail across Serbia, Srdanović has consistently proven himself to be a remarkably poised figure, combining a sharp, modern sartorial sense with a quick and disarming wit. Yet, much like the rest of the candidates on the Student List, he carries no prior political baggage or administrative experience within the traditional apparatus.
Rather than viewing this as a liability, the movement’s leadership and its supporters insist that this clean slate is their greatest strength. Drawn from a wide and respectable range of professional backgrounds outside of politics, the student-approved candidates are—crucially—completely untainted by the lingering suspicion of systemic corruption, cronyism, and political patronage that has clung stubbornly to most of Serbia’s entrenched political class for generations.
Yet, the unprecedented nature of this organized opposition is not the only formidable obstacle that Vučić must navigate in these elections. His greatest political kryptonite is arguably the very tragedy that accidentally served as the spark for the entire student-led protest movement. Sixteen innocent people lost their lives in November 2024 when a heavy concrete canopy suddenly and catastrophically collapsed at the railway station in Novi Sad, Serbia’s vital second-largest city.
Crucially, this disaster did not occur in some neglected, crumbling piece of ex-Yugoslav architecture left behind by decades of underinvestment. Instead, the station was a key, high-profile component of Vučić’s own signature infrastructure initiative: the ambitious high-speed railway project designed to physically and economically link the capital city of Belgrade to Budapest.
From the very beginning, successfully distancing himself and his administration from the horror of the disaster was always going to be an uphill battle for the incumbent leader. Just two years prior to the tragedy, Vučić had staged a massive, triumphant political rally at the grand re-opening of the very same facility, sharing the stage with Hungary’s long-standing prime minister, Viktor Orbán. Standing prominently atop the station canopy for the world to see, the core message delivered during the celebratory speeches was unmistakable: the flagship railway project was meant to symbolically transport the entire country into a modern, prosperous future, and voters were repeatedly told that they could implicitly trust Vučić as the singular man behind the wheel of national progress.
Above all else, this carefully cultivated projection of personal competence, economic dynamism, and hands-on management has been the absolute bedrock of Vučić’s electoral success over the years. Political detractors, alongside numerous international election monitors, have repeatedly and correctly highlighted the SNS’s near-total domination of domestic media coverage, as well as its extensive, systemic use of state resources to skew the playing field and boost its share of the vote.
However, despite these documented democratic backsliding concerns, a significant and genuinely substantial proportion of Serbia’s electorate simply liked the cut of Vučić’s jib. As long as they perceived him as a strong, decisive leader who was visibly making daily life better and more stable in Serbia, a large segment of the population was more than willing to look the other way when credible allegations of authoritarianism, media suppression, and institutional capture were leveled against his administration.
The catastrophic disaster in Novi Sad, however, fundamentally ruptured that carefully managed public perception, piercing the aura of infallible competence that had shielded Vučić for over a decade. Now, the central question hanging over Sunday’s vote is simple yet momentous: will the Student List finally be able to successfully capitalize on the former leader’s newly tainted image in a way that previous, fractured opposition movements consistently failed to do?
In a high-stakes gamble to shore up his crumbling base, Vučić officially resigned as president so that he could personally lead the SNS’s list of candidates for prime minister. In essence, the veteran politician is now betting everything on the desperate hope that enough of his enduring “Superman” aura remains intact to carry him through the most perilous electoral test of his political career.
