Serbia’s strongman leader Vucic concedes defeat to student-led movement in seismic political shift

The long-serving strongman leader of Serbia, Aleksandar Vucic, concedes defeat in an election that pitted him and his right-wing party against a diverse student-led opposition movement that spent two years protesting his government.

It is a seismic political shift in the Balkan country where Vucic, who had been endorsed by Russian President Vladimir Putin and who denounced the student movement as a foreign-led attempt to unseat him, led with virtually absolute power for 14 years.

Almost immediately, crowds flooded the streets of the capital Belgrade and other Serbian cities in an outburst of euphoric celebration.

High turnout and gathering tensions marked the highly contested parliamentary election that was a showdown between Vucic and his right-wing Serbian Progressive Party and university students, who, accusing the government of corruption and dismantling democracy, had built a popular following across the country.

Serbia’s 6.4 million voters were electing lawmakers to the 250-member parliament. In conceding the election, Vucic says his party projects that his opponents, the youth-backed Students’ List, will take between 135 and 140 seats while his SNS party will have around 105.

“The Students’ List has won,” Vucic tells supporters at his party’s election night event, though he blames Serbia’s independent media as well as alleged interference by unnamed European countries and an ”American deep state” for the loss.

Supporters of the Students’ List drive around Belgrade in cars, honking horns, singing, shouting and chanting: “Aleksandar is gone,” referring to Vucic. Crowds swiftly dismantle the fences and tents at a park in central Belgrade where Vucic’s loyalists had been camping for over a year and had gathered earlier on Sunday.