Serbian diaspora mobilises behind student election challenge

More than 100,000 Serbs living abroad have registered for Serbia’s parliamentary election, with many seeing the vote as a choice between autocratic rule and liberalisation, BR reports. Around 30,000 people of Serbian background live in and around Munich, according to the article.

Marko Anocic, a graphic designer who has lived in Bavaria for years, is spending his free time campaigning to remove longtime Serbian leader Aleksandar Vucic from power. He and fellow campaigner Spomenka Vokojicic are printing the slogan “The students will win” on T-shirts and sweatshirts ahead of Sunday’s vote.

The pair support a student list that is contesting an election for the first time. Anocic says the vote could bring a change from what he describes as a corrupt, authoritarian system to a democratic state governed by the rule of law, with implications for Europe.

The student movement grew out of two years of street protests and an anti-corruption campaign launched after a station canopy collapsed in Novi Sad in 2024, killing 16 people. The students have called for a fresh start, better education and stronger rule of law, and say they would pursue those goals through an expert-led government. The list includes professors and researchers.

Anocic and Vokojicic welcomed student supporters who had travelled by bicycle to Munich’s Odeonsplatz. Vokojicic said she still gets goosebumps watching videos of the gathering, where more than 3,000 people reportedly chanted “Nobody is tired” after the cyclists had covered 1,600 kilometres.

Vucic has led Serbia for more than a decade, first as prime minister and then as president. He now wants to become prime minister again. At a campaign event, Vucic said Russian President Vladimir Putin supported him rather than the students, quoting Putin as saying he expected and hoped Vucic would become Serbia’s next prime minister.

At a Serbian dance club in central Munich, young members said they wanted reforms, including improvements to health and social services. Bojana Kimissoglou said she sees economic progress when she visits Serbia, including new industries, businesses, roads and motorways, but believes the students are more likely than Vucic’s Serbian Progressive Party to bring change. Vucic had already lost support among voters in the diaspora in previous elections, and the result could be more pronounced this time, BR reports.