Huge crowds gather at final pre-election rally of Serbia's students

BELGRADE, Serbia (AP) — Hundreds of thousands of supporters of Serbia 's protesting youth movement gathered Thursday at the final campaign rally ahead of a tense weekend parliamentary election in a challenge to the Balkan country's powerful populist strongman Aleksandar Vucic.

Crowds streamed into Belgrade's central Slavija square from all directions, also filling several blocks of streets around the area. The flag-waving, boisterous crowds chanted “Victory” in a wave of optimism ahead of Sunday's early vote that comes after almost two years of student-led protests against Vucic's tight rule in the Balkan country.

Support for the student movement has grown since the protests first started in November 2024. Their Students' List election ticket is polling neck and neck with Vucic's right-wing Serbian Progressive Party despite the ruling populists' tight control over mainstream media and all institutions in the country.

Drama student Natalija Stepanovic told the crowd that “three more days are left and they will pass.”

“So will fear, blackmail, injustice,” she added. “Tyrants will pass, like they always do, but the people of this country never will and they will stand tall as a monument to our joint struggle.”

Analysts say that a close result could make the outcome uncertain and pave the way for potential post-election instability if both sides declare victory after polls close on Sunday. Vucic, who controls the police, has said that any unrest after the vote would be swiftly quashed.

Scores of students have been detained in the past two years as the government cracked down on the protests to curb them. Vucic has been campaigning fiercely against his opponents ahead of the election, accusing the students of being financed from abroad to destroy the country.

International election monitors and the European Union have expressed concern about the safety and fairness of the ballot that has been marred by near-total government control over the media, reports of surveillance and cyber attacks on activists and a deeply polarized society.

Vucic held his closing rally also on Thursday at a sports hall in a separate part of Belgrade before several thousand people. He said he expects a victory by a margin of several hundred thousand votes in favor of his SNS party. He then participated in a radio show before a scheduled evening appearance on the state RTS broadcaster.

“We'll see what the result will be,” he conceded on Radio Belgrade, predicting a "tough, uncertain struggle.” Vucic added that “nothing special will happen” on election night and that “those who win will celebrate.”

While several minor parties are also in the race, observers say that the referendum-like atmosphere between Vucic and the students' movement could push most of the other groups below the 3% threshold necessary to make it to the 250-member Parliament.

“There is hope for the first time in like 30 years,” Marina Popov Taparicki from Belgrade said. "People want change.”

Igor Zecevic, also from Belgrade, added that "the students woke us up, woke everybody up in this country, and we just have to do our thing now, we have to get out, we have to vote.”

Slavija Square in Belgrade was the scene of a huge anti-government protest last March. That rally ended in a sudden disruption that experts later said — and the government denied — involved the use of a sonic weapon against peaceful demonstrators.

Critics accuse Vucic of rampant corruption, ties to organized crime and a crackdown on democratic freedoms, particularly the media , which he has denied. Suspicions of high-level graft in state railway projects triggered student-led protests after a collapsed canopy at a train station in Serbia’s north killed 16 people in November 2024.