Who are these Serbian students who managed to turn a revolt against corruption into a political movement capable of challenging Aleksandar Vučić’s grip on power? And above all, what do they intend to do now that they have secured a majority in parliament? To understand the ambitions of this singular political experience, one must read their eleven-point program.
Published in September 2026, on the eve of snap legislative elections that would end fourteen years of dominance by Vučić’s camp, this program arose from a movement sparked by the collapse of the Novi Sad train station canopy on November 1, 2024, which claimed sixteen lives. In less than two years, the demand for truth about this disaster, carried by hundreds of demonstrations across the country, occupied universities and citizen assemblies organized even in towns and villages, and transformed into a project of democratic renewal.
Their doctrine rests on a single formula: “This is not simply about replacing those in power, but about changing the rules that allow the monopolization of political power and the subjugation of the state’s institutions and citizens’ lives by the leaders.”
This ambition to transform a representative democracy progressively emptied of substance by clientelism and the concentration of power into a system open to direct citizen participation first materialized in the way the students chose their candidates for Parliament and in how they drafted their program.
As Turkish journalist Işın Eliçin noted, rather than arming themselves with a vertical organization around a few leaders, the students formed general assemblies (plenums) in which everyone could speak, and where decisions were, as far as possible, taken by consensus. This method then spread beyond the universities, with the formation of citizen assemblies (zborovi) in neighborhoods, towns, and villages, enabling residents to deliberate on their problems and to collectively develop solutions.
The selection of the 250 parliamentary candidates seems to have followed the same logic. Seats were first allocated among the six university towns, then among faculties, in order to avoid a Belgrade monopoly. In more than 80 faculties, student assemblies proposed, discussed, and selected candidates, before the lists were subjected to a cross veto. All figures already in power and those from the traditional opposition were excluded from this process, which produced a slate made up of academics, doctors, scientists, but also workers, artists, and activists. Most importantly, no student appeared among the candidates. For Dušan Pavlović, a Belgrade political science professor, this voluntary renunciation gave the movement its strength by lending credibility to the promise to change the system rather than simply replacing those who benefited from it.
As Andrea Capussela notes, “with 160 doctorates among 250 candidates, the Serbian Parliament must be the most scholarly of all time.”
Behind this striking figure lies the program’s central motto: “Knowledge is power.” In opposition to clientelist loyalties and illiberal subordination of institutions to the executive power of the Vučić era, the students intend to impose the independence of expertise and collective deliberation. The program thus proposes to end political appointments at the heads of institutions and public companies, to depoliticize education, and to make research, innovation, and knowledge the engines of a new economic model, breaking with a system based on inexpensive labor.
This linkage between direct democracy and parliamentary representation is one of the Serbian experiment’s main originality.
It also illuminates the two other rallying cries around which the program is organized.
The first, “Serbia or the Mafia,” aims at dismantling the mechanisms of state capture put in place by Vučić: independence of the judiciary, the creation of a specialized judicial police to investigate corruption, confiscation of wealth illegally acquired, transparency of public procurement, and liberating the media from political sway.
The third, “Serbia Grows with Us,” situates this democratic renewal within a social project and its concrete economic dimension. Reducing workers’ precarity, fighting monopolies, protecting agricultural land, ensuring housing access for young families, teachers, and healthcare workers, lowering drug prices, and reopening rural health centers.
One omission, however, stands out when reading. Geopolitical questions dominate the moment we are living through and deeply shape the Serbian debate. Yet Kosovo, relations with Vladimir Putin’s Russia, or EU membership are not addressed in their program. This exclusion of external fault lines is not insignificant: by shifting the debate from national identity and external alliances to corruption, institutional reforms, and living conditions, the students have managed to bypass the traditional divides of Serbian politics. Yet they run the risk of letting geopolitics overly determine the political process.
From the fight against corruption to the democratization of the economy, passing through the collective selection of candidates and the transformation of institutions, a single question runs through the eleven proposals: how to prevent power from being expropriated again once it is seized? Can the iron law of oligarchy truly be foiled in Serbia?
First Pillar: “Serbia or the Mafia”
Goal: combat corruption, ensure accountability of leaders, and guarantee the independence of institutions.
1. An Independent Judiciary
Free the courts and prosecutors from political pressure; create a special anti-corruption judicial police unit charged with investigating corruption. Break the ties between police forces and organized crime.
2. Confiscation of Illegally Acquired Wealth
Investigate the assets of public officials; recover wealth obtained through corruption. Hold public officials financially accountable for abuses of power and human rights violations.
3. Transparency in Public Procurement
Make state contracts and bids public; subject secret agreements and major, costly infrastructure projects to particularly stringent scrutiny.
4. Media Freedom
Free public broadcasting and media regulators from political influence; combat discrimination and hate speech; reorganize the licensing system for broadcasting.
Second Pillar: “Knowledge Is Power”
Goal: promote meritocracy, education, and a knowledge-based economy.
5. Merit in the Public Sector
End political appointments; entrust the leadership of institutions and public enterprises to capable individuals rather than party loyalists.
6. Education Reform
Depoliticize teaching, cultivate critical thinking, and modernize education; provide free textbooks in primary and secondary education.
7. A Knowledge-Based Production
Bring universities closer to production; support research, innovation, local entrepreneurs, and farmers. Break with an economic model based on cheap labor.
Third Pillar: “Serbia Grows with Us”
Goal: improve working conditions, strengthen economic independence, and guarantee social rights.
8. Job Security
Reduce the maximum duration of fixed-term contracts from 24 to 12 months; combat worker precarity.
9. Fight Against Monopolies and Food Sovereignty
End the dominance of shareholder- and import-linked interest groups on the market; protect agricultural lands and water resources.
10. Affordable Housing
Offer housing with affordable rents and affordable homeownership opportunities for young families, teachers, and healthcare professionals.
11. A Doctor in Every Village
Lower the price of medicines, reopen rural health centers, and guarantee access to essential health care across the entire territory.