BELGRADE, Serbia (AP) — Protesting Serbian university students on Sunday collected signatures across the country for their demand for an early parliamentary election that they hope will oust the autocratic government of President Aleksandar Vucic.
Braving freezing weather, the students set up nearly 500 stands in dozens of cities, towns and villages in the Balkan country for residents to sign the election petition, which is not a formal petition. The students said that Sunday’s action was meant to put more pressure on Vucic and as a show of support.
The young protesters were at the forefront of a national movement against Vucic’s populist rule in Serbia. More than a year of street protests began in November 2024 after a train station disaster that killed 16 people.
The collapse of the concrete canopy in the northern city of Novi Sad was widely blamed on alleged rampant corruption and non-observance of construction and safety rules during renovation work at the station. No one was held responsible for the tragedy.
Vucic refused to schedule an immediate early vote, but suggested it could be held sometime next year. Both parliamentary and presidential elections are otherwise expected in 2027.
“We have stands that serve to connect with citizens,” said Igor Dojnov, a student who manages one of the points in the center of Belgrade.
Youth-led protests over the past year have shaken Vucic more than ever during his 13-year tenure. Serbia’s populist prime minister resigned in January, and Vucic later launched a crackdown on protesters that also drew international criticism.
While street protests have subsided, discontent with Vucic’s government is believed to be widespread.
Milca Cankovic Kadijevic, a resident of Belgrade, said that she supported the students, because “I have a desire to live in a decent way – me, my children and my grandchildren.”
Vucic has formally pledged to bring Serbia into the European Union, but has maintained close ties to Russia and China, while facing accusations that he has stifled democratic freedoms and allowed corruption and organized crime to flourish.
He denied this, accusing the protesters of trying to orchestrate a “color revolution” under unspecified orders from the West. The term “color revolution” was used to describe a series of mass protests in the early 21st century that sometimes led to the overthrow of governments in the states of the former Soviet Union, the former Yugoslavia, the Middle East and Asia.