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Can Student Protest Change Serbia’s Politics? October 23, 2026 · 6:53 · With Maya, Alex, and Daniel
We use clear English to understand the world and build language skills along the way. I’m Maya. Daniel covers world affairs, conflicts and elections, and Alex is our journalist.…
Transcript Maya Welcome to Slow English FM. This is our round table, where we take one subject and look at it from more than one side. We use clear English to understand the world and build language skills along the way. I’m Maya. Daniel covers world affairs, conflicts and elections, and Alex is our journalist. Thanks for listening. Our question is: can Serbia’s student protest movement turn public anger into political change? Maya Alex, start with the event that brought these students together. What happened, and how did protest become an election campaign? Alex The movement began after a concrete canopy collapsed at the railway station in Novi Sad, a city in northern Serbia. It happened on November 1, 2024, and 16 people died. The collapse became a public symbol of questions about safety and responsibility. The Guardian reported that evidence pointed to poor changes made during renovation work. No official had been held accountable by the time of this campaign. Anger over the disaster joined wider concerns about suspected corruption, public contracts that people could not see clearly, and a lack of official accountability. Students blocked university faculties and held street protests. Over time, that protest movement moved into electoral politics. Alex Its campaign is known as the Student List. Maya So, Alex, what changed when the students moved from protest to a candidate list? Alex They put forward 250 candidates. Most were nominated by university faculties, and student plenary meetings had to approve each candidate. A plenary is a meeting where participants can speak and make decisions together. The list also included people from other backgrounds, including farmers. The Guardian reported that more than 160 candidates had doctorates. That process is connected to how the movement organised itself during the protests. Students held open meetings, without relying on one permanent leader to make decisions. Alex A 2025 analysis by the Helmut Schmidt Foundation describes those meetings as part of the movement’s direct-democratic approach: participants could speak and take part in decisions. Maya Daniel, why might a movement choose not to have a single public leader? Daniel One reason, according to the reporting, was to make it harder to attack one person. The Guardian says the students rotated their public spokespeople. They wanted to prevent state-aligned media and intelligence agencies from having one fixed target for personal attacks. There is a political advantage in that approach: it can help keep attention on shared demands rather than on one personality. But an election also asks voters to choose people who will represent them. So the movement has had to turn a collective way of making decisions into a list of candidates. The fact that faculties and plenaries took part in selecting them suggests an effort to carry its internal process into the campaign. Maya Alex, what do the available numbers say about the movement’s public support? And how carefully should we read them? Alex A survey published in July by the Serbian group CRTA and Stanford University found support for the student movement at 45 percent, compared with 36 percent for the ruling Serbian Progressive Party, known by the initials SNS. The Guardian noted that the survey came before President Aleksandar Vučić announced his resignation on September 27, and before the ruling party’s later campaign activity. Maya Daniel, what other conditions will shape whether the students can turn support into votes? Daniel One is access to television. A September survey by CRTA found that representatives of the ruling majority received 69 percent of airtime on Serbian television channels. Of the remaining coverage given to the opposition, CRTA found that 42 percent was negative in tone and 53 percent was neutral. That matters because a new political list needs people to hear what it is offering. Maya Alex, how broad is the movement’s base? Is student support enough for an electoral challenge? Alex The Helmut Schmidt Foundation’s analysis says people under 30 make up roughly 16 percent of Serbia’s population. It argues that the movement needs support from older voters who are also unhappy with the political situation. That puts a practical question at the heart of the campaign: can a movement that began in universities build links beyond students? Maya Daniel, what does that tell us about the limits of youth-led protest? Daniel It tells us that energy and organisation are not the same as a winning coalition. The students have shown they can mobilise, hold open meetings and select candidates. There is also a wider lesson for youth-led movements elsewhere. A protest can bring people together around a clear event and a demand for accountability. To affect who governs, its supporters then need a way to make choices, present candidates and appeal to people outside the original group. Maya Alex, bring us back to the disaster itself. What remains at stake in the demand for accountability? Alex That gives the movement a specific issue behind its broader political challenge. Its campaign asks whether public anger about safety, public contracts and responsibility can be carried into electoral choices. Maya Daniel has explained the movement’s strategy and the challenge of building support beyond students. Alex has traced its path from the Novi Sad station collapse to a candidate list, and the questions of media access and accountability. The central question remains whether collective protest can become broad electoral support. Thanks for joining us on Slow English FM.
