On 25 October, the coed motion and its electoral checklist swept the ruling regime from energy in Serbia, securing a decisive victory regardless of widespread electoral manipulation. Voter turnout reached a powerful 70%, regardless of a falsified voter register that had been used to distort the electoral course of. The Scholar Checklist received 140 of 250 parliamentary seats. Other than the Serbian Progressive Celebration and nationwide minority lists, no different checklist crossed the electoral threshold. Though analysts, specialists and opinion polls had acknowledged the scholars’ power and potential benefit, few anticipated a victory of this scale.
So, what occurred? How did a motion that emerged in response to the collapse of the railway station cover in Novi Unhappy on 1 November 2024, when 16 folks have been killed, develop from school blockades and calls for for accountability right into a broad social pressure able to bringing about such profound political change? The method will definitely be analysed sooner or later, however we will already replicate on a few of its principal traits, drawing on our personal expertise of just about two years of wrestle. We’re not writing as impartial analysts or specialists however as individuals, activists, artists, cultural staff and students who took an energetic half within the course of. We see this as a possibility to replicate on our lived expertise, and to articulate and share the data now we have generated by way of apply.
Organizing from under
On election day, greater than 80,000 residents throughout Serbia volunteered in election monitoring, coordination and logistics: together with observers, polling-station committee members, cell groups, drivers, operators, meals suppliers and polling-station coordinators. Their involvement was preceded by coaching and preparation for various eventualities, together with procedures for responding to electoral fraud reminiscent of carousel voting (Bugarski voz), phantom voters, parallel voter lists and cast identification playing cards, in addition to intimidation and potential violence by police or teams coerced or paid by the regime. After repeated assaults on college students and residents throughout the protests, the specter of potential violence on election day was taken severely. The dimensions and complexity of this enterprise show the intensive organizational infrastructure constructed inside the pupil motion and its broader social base by way of its personal sources and self-organization.
The coed protests woke up a way of hope that moved many voters deeply and drew them into collective motion. Because the protests continued, nevertheless, given their shifts in depth, they typically appeared excessively drawn out and irritating to many who had joined them. But the coed motion benefited from this slow-burning course of, setting in movement social developments that take time and resist the logic of instant political effectivity and fast outcomes. What generally felt like a waste of time and power, an funding with out an apparent end result, was the truth is constructing the invisible ties and relationships on which a brand new type of self-organization depended.
On 24 January 2025, tens of hundreds of scholars, training staff and residents joined a protest below the banner of a ‘Normal Strike’ and widespread civil disobedience. Initiated by College students in Blockade, it drew substantial participation from secondary faculty college students, who known as their motion ‘An Out of doors Lesson’. Picture courtesy of writer Vahida Ramujkić.
For broad sections of the inhabitants, this era turned a possibility to tell themselves about democracy and political subjectivization. Individuals discovered about legal guidelines and rights, gained expertise in collective decision-making and developed a way of shared accountability. It was additionally time for folks to beat years of social isolation, rebuild mutual belief and expertise their very own capability for social change. Neither electoral victory nor taking energy was the objective of this course of. Somewhat, it sought a systemic transformation, recognizing that, below current situations, any new authorities could be absorbed by the mechanisms of the system.
The trail in the direction of this transformation is embodied within the motion’s plenary buildings and direct-democratic decision-making – the truth that the Scholar Checklist has no single chief and its representatives have been rotating in public appearances. School plenums, as areas for practising direct democracy, discussing a variety of points and making collective selections, have empowered college students to interact in numerous types of illustration, and develop practices of mutual accountability and accountability. This new logic of collective participation in governance challenged the prior institutional order constructed on hierarchy and illustration. It turned clear that the subsequent step within the lengthy technique of institutional transformation was to foster the capability of a broad social base to self-organize and construct unbiased platforms, associations and networks by which direct-democratic rules might be put into apply throughout completely different sectors of society.
To encourage wider social mobilization, college students known as on residents throughout Serbia to prepare regionally by way of residents’ assemblies, and on staff to ascertain plenums of their workplaces, providing help and steerage in these processes of self-organization. Residents and staff started taking initiative in their very own communities and sectors, connecting particular issues to the broader collective wrestle, adapting the plenary mannequin to completely different circumstances and constructing new coordination buildings. By means of such initiatives and that of ‘A Scholar in Each Village’, which supplied help for communities outdoors city centres, the motion reached completely different components of society throughout geographical, class and generational divides. Notably shifting have been the encounters with aged residents of essentially the most distant villages, the place virtually no younger folks remained – most had left as a result of these locations had nothing to supply them. Nobody had ever requested these folks what they thought. They knew the politicians on whom their on a regular basis lives depended solely from tv. Now college students have been arriving to speak to them, take heed to them and doc their issues, bringing pleasure to their hearts.
Infrastructures of care
The emotional cohesion of the coed motion has been essential to sustaining collective motion regardless of inside ideological and strategic heterogeneity. In response to Ildiko Erdei, care, seen as a political pressure, was the core of their social mobilization. The coed wrestle in Serbia constituted its personal language, communication channels and infrastructures. The protest soundtrack, movies and social media posts, the iconography and visible language of the motion, pupil magazines and fanzines, graffiti and stickers, and, significantly, the apply of collective strolling may be learn as applied sciences by way of which affective solidarity turned politically operative. The motion’s new language circulated primarily by way of digital networks, particularly pupil plenary Instagram accounts, producing what Manuel Castells describes as ‘networked resistance’. These cultural and communicative networks activated types of social and symbolic capital that prolonged past standard repertoires of political mobilization. The pace of artistic response was significantly essential: memes, photographs, slogans, performances, movies and different types of cultural manufacturing flow into quickly, grow to be viral, strengthen solidarity, whereas pre-empting or exposing the regime’s violence.
By means of conferences, debates, marches and collective actions, new areas for social interplay and relations emerged in a rising community throughout the nation. In a society deeply scarred by fragmentation, poverty, unemployment, coercion and humiliation as a consequence of successive privatizations because the dissolution of Yugoslavia, these areas enabled folks to rebuild mutual belief. Impressed by the scholars’ persistence and enthusiasm, residents created their very own symbols, slogans, banners, coats of arms and flags, devised campaigns and social-media messages, organized public discussions, studying teams and bazaars, and began publishing their very own photocopied zines. By means of these actions, local people cultures started to take form, grounded in solidarity, collective motion and care.
On 28 June 2025, throughout the Vidovdan protest in Belgrade, an infinite patchwork Serbian tricolour was handed from hand handy above the heads of hundreds of demonstrators. Picture courtesy of writer Vahida Ramujkić.
The coed marches and bicycle excursions have been significantly essential in extending these relationships. A few of these journeys concerned overlaying a whole lot of kilometres, connecting locations and communities throughout Serbia and past. By shifting collectively throughout cities, borders and territories, the motion produced new relations between our bodies, house and political energy. This non-utilitarian motion,, shaping a brand new panorama of the tradition of resistance in Serbia, turned energetic solidarity into new social infrastructure. Sustaining this new infrastructure required an on a regular basis funding of typically invisible labour. It additionally introduced in new folks and prolonged shared accountability.
Help for pupil marches was sturdy and various throughout the nation. Residents of locations by way of which college students travelled organized help reminiscent of welcome committees, meals, lodging and transport. As in each nationwide liberation wrestle, folks gave what that they had at their disposal, activating completely different sources: monetary, psychological, emotional {and professional}. The walks and bike excursions led to the voluntary activation of sources and care infrastructures that sustained the scholars by way of crises. Solidarity, empathy, care, hope, data and dedication turned sources by way of which social mobilization was sustained and reproduced.
The challenges of systematic change
The wrestle’s long-term ambitions have been additionally mirrored within the student-devised formation of the Social Entrance, bringing collectively rebellious staff’ collectives, skilled communities and commerce unions from completely different sectors. Its goal was to attach their struggles and allow staff, by way of direct-democratic decision-making, to articulate widespread calls for for bettering working situations and remodeling public companies, and to function a mechanism for holding any future authorities accountable. Drafting Programme Minimal was one of many Social Entrance’s principal duties. Conceived as one of many founding paperwork of the coed motion’s political programme, it introduced collectively proposals from completely different fields, from legislative amendments to adjustments in institutional governance, and articulated core commitments to staff’ rights, training, healthcare and tradition as public items, the safety of pure sources, and nationwide integrity.
Nonetheless, in contrast with the intensive civic mobilization by way of native assemblies, the Social Entrance developed slower and failed to attain a few of its most formidable targets, together with a common strike. Cooperation with consultant commerce unions on collectively drafting amendments to the Labour Legislation and the Legislation on Strikes took appreciable time and was troublesome to ascertain. This expertise revealed the depth of systemic issues within the area of labour and the quantity of labor nonetheless wanted to create the situations for an efficient staff’ wrestle.
These difficulties level exactly to the financial situations that negatively form the collective group of staff – situations that can’t be overcome just by a change of presidency. On this gentle, the electoral victory was conceived as simply one of many vital milestones in a much more demanding wrestle that lies forward: confronting not solely corruption and nepotism but in addition essentially remodeling the system that produced them.
The dimensions of this enterprise and its challenges grow to be clearer after we take into account the broader geopolitical context of Serbia as a rustic of peripheral capitalism, in a state of full financial and, subsequently, political dependence on the nations of the capitalist centre. The Serbian financial system is fully reliant on international funding and concessions, constructing its competitiveness on the worldwide market by way of the exploitation of its pure sources and labour pressure. All this poses a extremely complicated problem for the longer term management, one which calls for progressive options for reviving the home financial system whereas guaranteeing first rate working situations, social safety, and the situations for social improvement by way of training and tradition.
From plenums to the electoral checklist
Following the mass protest on 15 March 2025, it turned more and more clear that current establishments weren’t responding to the motion’s calls for. This shifted the technique of the motion towards calling for early parliamentary elections which gave the wrestle a brand new path. Greater than 80 school plenums initiated an in depth deliberative course of to kind the Scholar Checklist, comprising 250 chosen parliamentary candidates drawn from a broad ideological spectrum, with a very sturdy presence of intellectuals and members of the educational neighborhood. Importantly, the scholars themselves didn’t stand as candidates; as a substitute, they chose folks they might belief to characterize the motion and its calls for.
Alongside the formation of the Scholar Checklist, the duty of creating detailed programmes for various areas of social life was entrusted to newly established teams of collaborators. Drawing on Programme Minimal, thematic working teams, bringing collectively college students and a whole lot of specialists from completely different fields, drafted twenty complete programmes. Overlaying the financial system, trade, healthcare, home and international coverage, training, tradition, housing, environmental safety and the judiciary, amongst different areas, they establish essentially the most urgent issues going through Serbia and suggest measures to handle them within the brief, medium and long run. This participatory course of mobilized a broad community of pros, who contributed their time and experience for nearly a 12 months to the programme of the Scholar Checklist. It was introduced to voters in a summarized type of eleven factors, and thru thematic leaflets and panel discussions all through the nation.
The novelty of this pupil motion was not solely its leaderless horizontal construction but in addition its deliberate restraint in explicitly articulating an ideological place. Notably throughout the first months of the protests, it drew spectacular numbers of citizen supporters by intentionally excluding get together and political symbols, in addition to political speeches. Many have been fast to learn this as a populist, catch-all technique aimed toward interesting to the broadest potential constituency by downplaying ideological variations and avoiding specific political positioning.
By refusing to fall into the lure of ideological divisions and labelling, instrumentalized for political functions for many years and infrequently taking an virtually folkloric character (left-wingers versus right-wingers, pro-Russian versus pro-EU, nationalists versus globalists, and so forth), the scholars prevented synthetic divisions that political elites had exploited to the detriment of society as a complete. The collection of candidates for the Scholar Checklist remained ideologically heterogeneous, bringing collectively folks from various ideological positions. The scholars additionally selected to postpone open debate on international coverage, recognizing its confirmed potential for social polarization. They thought-about that such a debate ought to happen solely when the structural situations for knowledgeable and genuinely democratic public dialogue are in place, together with free media, open public boards and areas for the trade of various views.
Interregnum
On the time of writing, Serbia is within the transitional interval between the Scholar Checklist’s electoral victory and the structure of latest governing our bodies. Following the proclamation of the ultimate election outcomes, the brand new parliament should be constituted inside 30 days, and an additional interval of as much as 90 days is allowed for forming a authorities. The switch of energy might subsequently legally take as much as 120 days. This interim interval, an interregnum, creates alternatives for malpractice within the absence of a longtime govt authority, together with the concealment of proof and the destruction of paperwork, practices by which the outgoing authorities is already extensively reported to be partaking. Preserving public data and scrutinizing the actions of outgoing officers are subsequently instant priorities.
On 7 March 2025, college students and residents gathered at Pionirski Park in Belgrade, reverse the Serbian presidency, after a protest outdoors the general public broadcaster RTS. Police shaped a cordon separating them from the newly established ‘College students 2.0’ camp, whose members opposed the college blockades. Picture courtsey of Writer Vahida Ramujkić.
The motion’s intensive grassroots base in the meantime launched spontaneous actions on the very first morning after the election. These included reclaiming Pionirski Park (Pioneer Park), a central inexperienced house in entrance of the Serbian Presidency that had been fenced off for a 12 months and a half and occupied by a camp colloquially referred to as Ćaciland. Established in March 2025 and formally introduced as a gathering of scholars against the college blockades, the camp turned a stronghold for presidency supporters, together with members of far-right teams and people with legal data. After the election, residents cleared and cleaned the park, restored its inexperienced areas and reopened it to the general public. Symbolically the primary media convention of the Scholar Checklist befell on 29 October at this very location. Different initiatives included eradicating fences from inexperienced areas earmarked for privatization and cleansing regime-sponsored graffiti from constructing façades. On the similar time, collectives inside public establishments, casual skilled associations and combative commerce unions started demanding the resignation of officers appointed by the previous ruling get together.
Institutional responses additionally started throughout this transitional interval. The Supreme Public Prosecutor ordered a assessment of prosecution case information and pressing measures to forestall the destruction of official data in state establishments, banks and safety businesses. Amongst dozens of instances, the Nationwide Financial institution of Serbia revoked Alta Financial institution’s working licence, citing its deteriorating monetary situation and dangers to depositors.
Occasions are unfolding so quickly that the scenario will little question have modified by the point this text is revealed. One factor is for certain: the regime has fallen, however our wrestle has solely simply begun.
What comes subsequent?
The method of ideological articulation of the coed motion, together with the Scholar Checklist, stays a piece in progress. To date, the motion’s ideological orientation may be discerned extra clearly in its methods of organizing and appearing than within the narrative by way of which it presents itself. In the interim, that is what issues most.
The motion has already constructed a strong casual social base that has demonstrated its capability to defeat the ruling regime and to achieve legitimacy by way of the Scholar Checklist. Extra importantly, it has created an open and versatile infrastructure by which everybody can discover their place and really feel included, revered and helpful to the widespread good. In doing so, the coed motion in Serbia has performed a pioneering function within the broader democratization of governance, empowering residents to take an energetic half within the selections that form their lives.
The success of this enterprise inside Serbia will finally rely upon the motion’s capability to ascertain new institutional channels connecting direct democracy on the grassroots with consultant democracy inside the state, enabling real participation in governing the nation and shaping new social relations. Serbia will not be alone on this search. Scholar actions in France, Spain, Brazil, Italy and India, and within the wider Balkan area, together with Romania, Greece and Albania, elevate the query of how collective organizing and remodeling political establishments might lengthen past the Serbian expertise.
