Serbia's student protest movement has taken its first steps toward formal political engagement, joining forces with opposition parties to contest upcoming local elections in several municipalities.
In Bajina Bašta, a town in western Serbia, students who led months of demonstrations demanding accountability after a deadly rail station collapse have formed a unified electoral list with established opposition groups, N1 reported.
Milan Mitrović, a student representative, told journalists that "the situation will be completely different at these elections" compared to previous contests dominated by the ruling Serbian Progressive Party (SNS). The alliance represents an attempt to translate months of street protests into electoral challenges against President Aleksandar Vučić's governing coalition.
The student movement emerged following the November 2024 collapse of a renovated railway station canopy in Novi Sad that killed 15 people. Protesters demanded transparency about construction contracts and accountability for officials they blamed for corruption and negligence. University blockades and daily demonstrations became the largest sustained challenge to Vučić's government since he consolidated power in 2012.
Yet the transition from protest to politics carries significant risks. Serbian opposition parties have repeatedly struggled to convert street mobilization into electoral success, hampered by media bias favoring the ruling party, allegations of vote manipulation, and internal divisions. Student leaders face the challenge of maintaining their movement's independence while navigating the compromised terrain of Serbian electoral politics.
In the Balkans, as across post-conflict regions, the path forward requires acknowledging the past without being imprisoned by it. The Bajina Bašta experiment tests whether grassroots energy can revitalize opposition politics long fragmented by personality conflicts and tactical disagreements.
Some students remain skeptical of formal political engagement. Critics within the movement worry that aligning with established parties risks diluting their message and compromising the moral authority gained through months of principled protest. The opposition parties themselves carry reputational baggage from years of ineffective challenges to Vučić's dominance.
The upcoming municipal elections will provide an early test. Bajina Bašta, with fewer than 10,000 residents, may seem peripheral to national politics. But the town's symbolic importance lies in demonstrating whether sustained civic mobilization can produce concrete political change in a system where power remains highly centralized.
Ruling party officials have dismissed the student-opposition alliance as insignificant. Yet the SNS reportedly spent record amounts on recent local election campaigns in Negotin, Mionica, and Sečanj—approximately 12 million dinars total—suggesting the government takes even small-scale challenges seriously.
The broader question remains whether Serbia's opposition can build durable institutions from episodic protest movements. Previous mobilizations—against urban development projects in 2016, against electoral manipulation in 2020, against lithium mining in 2021—generated significant public attention but failed to produce lasting political alternatives.
For students who spent months blocking university buildings and facing police pressure, the electoral path represents both opportunity and compromise. Success in municipalities like Bajina Bašta could provide a blueprint for challenging entrenched power. Failure risks demoralizing a generation that briefly believed civic action could transform Serbian politics.
