A leaderless movement on the ballot

The Student List is a leaderless movement of student-backed candidates whose main aim is to end more than 14 years of rule by Aleksandar Vucic's rightwing populist Serbian Progressive party. Its core pledge is to fight corruption, within a broader platform.

Many of the movement's 250 candidates running for the 250-seat parliament are drawn from academia, or are deliberate political outsiders.

From a collapsed canopy to an election call

Sunday's vote follows nearly two years of student protests in Serbia sparked by the 2024 collapse of a canopy at the newly renovated Novi Sad railway station, which killed 16 people.

Widely blamed on corruption, the Novi Sad canopy collapse triggered some of the country's largest protests since the fall of Slobodan Milosevic in 2000. The movement, led by university students, then grew from demands for a transparent investigation into calls for an early election.

What was said at Slavija Square

The Archive of Public Gatherings, an independent crowd-size monitoring group, estimated about 150,000 people attended Thursday's rally. Students and supporters marched through Belgrade waving "Students are winning" flags before converging on Slavija Square, the site of some of their biggest protests.

Jugoslav Gasic, a university professor and one of the 250 Student List candidates, told the crowd: "We are putting an end to 14 years of humiliation, chaos and betrayal, and to decades of putting personal and party interests above yours". As the crowd chanted "Victory, victory!", he added: "You deserve better, and we know how to deliver it. Students are winning!".

That was Marija Nedeljkovic Radic, 47, explaining why she joined. Igor, a 35-year-old attendee, told the rally: "Today is the last rally, and it's important that we all come here to send a message of love and peace" - urging people to meet again at polling stations on the 25th.

Vucic counters as warnings of unfair conditions mount

Vucic has dominated Serbian politics for over a decade, serving as either prime minister or president. He announced the snap vote last month, setting up his biggest electoral challenge since his party took power in 2012.

On Thursday he addressed supporters at a Belgrade sports hall. The 56-year-old, who resigned to run for prime minister, has regularly accused the student movement of being a foreign-funded coup attempt and urged supporters to protect the state: "Let us go out and defeat them! Defeat them decisively!".

Civil society groups warned days before the vote that conditions for "free and fair elections" were lacking, saying the campaign has been marred by intimidation, arrests and misuse of public resources. On Wednesday, Belgrade prosecutors questioned six people arrested on suspicion of plotting "violence, riots and attacks" on election day. Reports of threats and intimidation targeting student demonstrators have grown in recent months, though their rallies have remained largely peaceful.

Serbia lacks reliable independent polling, and surveys have produced widely differing results; the parliamentary vote takes place on Sunday.