Vučić’s 12-year reign looks to have been ended by record turnout of voters in election provoked by student-led protests
The long-serving leader of Serbia, Aleksandar Vučić, has conceded defeat, ushering in a seismic political shift after a historic election that saw the increasingly authoritarian leader pitted against a student-led movement that had spent two years protesting against his government.
Vučić pointed to preliminary results that suggested voters had overwhelmingly backed the students, potentially giving them a majority in the country’s 250-seat parliament.
The peaceful departure of Serbian president Aleksandar Vučić could open a positive new chapter in Western Balkans history, even as France drifts in the opposite direction.
Vučić acknowledged defeat shortly after 9.30PM on Sunday (25 October), when exit polls put his SNS party on 105 seats in parliament, behind the reformist Student List movement, led by cardiologist Ilija Srdanovic, on 135 to 140, even though the final results were far from clear.
“Serbia is free! People, BRAVO!,” the Student List posted on X.
It had been a tense night in Belgrade, with a heavy police presence in front of government buildings, scuffles at polling stations, and with student and other citizens’ patrol groups monitoring voting, as well as over 300 formal international observers.
MEPs and US senators had also warned Vučić (who had once worked at the top of the brutal dictatorship of Slobodan Milošević) on X not to resort to violence to try to steal the vote,
But it seems that the landslide was so huge and the turnout so massive (over 69 percent) that there was nothing to be done.
Serbian nationalism, Western Balkan corruption, and Russian interference will not disappear from the region overnight, but with the nationalist-populist Vučić gone there is more chance of normalisation of Kosovo relations and less chance of a Bosnia break up.
And there is every chance that a positive reform momentum, rewarded by the EU, could spread from Serbia and help bring more Western Balkan countries into Europe after Montenegro next year.
It is the fourth defeat in national elections in a row for pro-Russian and/or far-right parties in Europe this year, after Hungary, but also Sweden and Latvia.
And that is a good trend for progressives, in the run-up to the election super-cycle of 2026/2027, which will see similar battles unfold in Spain, France, Estonia, Finland, Greece, Slovakia, Poland, and Italy in the next 12 months.
“If we have peace, whatever the outcome, it will be beneficial and blessed. If we have unrest, anger and hatred, whatever the outcome, it will be disastrous for everyone,” said Serb Orthodox Church patriarch Porfirije earlier on Sunday.
The spectacle of a peaceful transition of power in Serbia will not be welcomed by Moscow.
But it is also a powerful example to any students or ethnic minorities in France, Italy, or further afield in Europe, who spent a second weekend rioting in multiple towns in protest at social inequality.
If the far right was to take power in France in April, spurred on by racial tension and civil unrest, it would quickly wipe out any gains made on Sunday in Serbia, both in terms of EU stability, Western Balkans’ enlargement prospects, and Russian strategy.
But if young people in the EU want change and fairer societies, then the students of Serbia, who began today’s tectonic movement in protests two years ago in the town of Novi Sad, have shown them that the path to victory lies in non-violent resistance and patience.
More than 30 people arrested as officers clear at least 100 tents in central Lisbon and about 50 in Porto
Police in Portugal have dismantled housing protest camps in Lisbon and Porto, baton-charging campaigners in the early hours of Sunday and arresting more than 30 people.
The raids were the latest incident in days of clashes between police and campaigners who – inspired by similar camps in Spain – had sought to pitch tents in central squares to protest against the country’s deepening housing crisis.
PM’s plea supported by Angela Rayner, Ed Miliband and business leaders, while some ‘red wall’ MPs voice concern
Andy Burnham’s call for the UK to consider a return to free movement with Europe has been backed by senior cabinet ministers but risked a rift with “red wall” Labour MPs, who say it could jeopardise Brexit-voting seats.
The prime minister made his plea for an “honest discussion” about freedom of movement in an interview with the Sunday Times, making clear that staying out of it would no longer be a red line in talks with the EU.
James ‘Fergie’ Chambers, in prison in Spain, has applied for asylum as US seeks extradition over alleged Hamas support
US authorities seized wealthy activist James “Fergie” Chambers’s cellphone at some point after Spanish police arrested him in July without notifying him or his attorneys, the Guardian has learned.
Chambers, a US citizen and wealthy donor to leftwing and humanitarian projects, is imprisoned in Madrid. His case is the first known instance of the US seeking to extradite a citizen over alleged support for Hamas, an accusation tied to money Chambers has donated to support Palestinians, including the Sameer Project, in Gaza.
Israel’s 27 October election might disappoint everyone. To start, there may be no next-day resolution. Polls show the Netanyahu-allied and opposition blocs nearly tied, both short of a majority.
If that holds, expect weeks of furtive factional negotiations that diminish the reputations of all involved. If those fail, back to the ballot box.
If a new government forms quickly, it will likely be led by Benjamin Netanyahu or the opposition’s Gadi Eisenkot. Most observers outside Israel are hoping for Gadi. In truth, either result will confront Brussels and Washington with tough choices that both have put off too long.
Last week’s grudging and partial White House endorsement notwithstanding, Netanyahu is near-friendless on the international scene.
If he grinds out another win, many European leaders and US presidential contenders will find themselves managing bilateral relationships of mutual contempt.
Unwilling to face hard facts at home, Bibi seemed to think he could gamble them away with Gulf money and American missile interceptors. He marketed himself as the founding entrepreneur of a new-model Middle East powered by Saudi normalisation and Iranian regime change.
Instead, Houthi drones and Saudi budget deficits are vaporising the mirage of glass cities and data centres in the desert.
Trump’s war now
Iran is Trump’s war now, not Israel’s: He will fight or end it as he pleases. What’s left on the IDF’s regional briefing map are small places with complicated pasts and unclear futures, lands that Israel wishes the rest of the world would forget but is itself unwilling to leave.
The old Middle East is back. In truth, it never left.
It has been the beggar at the door of every air-conditioned Gulf investment conference. But the poor relations — Gaza, the West Bank, Lebanon, Syria, Yemen — have refused to go quietly.
Israel’s old politics are back, too.
The median Israeli is 29-years old. Netanyahu, whose hair and makeup bills are the subject of a considerable body of investigative journalism, just turned 77. His leading rival Eisenkot, who lost a son and two nephews in Gaza, launched his career as a platoon commander in Israel’s 1982 invasion of Lebanon.
Israel, like America, is due generational change.
Instead, Israelis (or at least undecided centre-right voters) got a choice of character: the embarrassing, but reassuringly indestructible Bibi, or the earnest but untested Eisenkot.
It’s not just the faces that are familiar. The candidates are still fighting Israel’s culture wars. The debates that dominated the election — ultra-orthodox military enlistment, judicial reform, and the role of religion in the state — are serious. But they’re also stalemated.
Despite deafening recriminations about who is to blame for exposing Israel to Hamas’s 7 October attacks, the debate about security in Gaza and Israel’s north is equally stuck.
Indiscriminate destruction and deliberate destabilisation
Netanyahu promised “total victory”; that turned out to mean indiscriminate destruction and deliberate destabilisation. His opponents claim Netanyahu has squandered the IDF’s achievements. They promise to do what Netanyahu could not, by using the same crude tools to achieve the same poorly defined objectives — but this time, with greater skill.
The question of what that means for ordinary Palestinian civilians, and what future they can expect for their children, has barely been discussed.
Many Israeli voters, desensitised to the situation of Palestinians who are routinely dehumanised by Israel’s domestic press, don’t ask. Most Israeli candidates carefully avoid answering.
Both blocs pledge they’ll refuse to partner with the Arab-Israeli parties that could hold the key to a Knesset majority — even as prominent Arab candidates downplay their support for Palestinian statehood and campaign on more palatable topics like under-policing in Arab communities.
It’s comforting to imagine an Israeli government formed by anyone left of Netanyahu will steer instinctively towards international expectations. But a more centrist Israeli government, like any elected government anywhere, will operate within the political space created by the policy priorities and the empathetic capacity of its voters.
There isn’t much room for Palestinians.
If an opposition-bloc government forms, it will surely ask for time, assuring foreign capitals that the appearance of pressure makes meaningful change harder back home.
European leaders and US Democrats poised to win at least one house of Congress in November may be tempted to pause efforts to compel Israel towards rapid implementation of the international road map in Gaza, an end to ethnic cleansing in the West Bank, and full IDF withdrawal from Lebanon and Syria.
That would be a mistake.
There will be no place in Israeli politics for a realistic discussion of Gaza, the West Bank, Lebanon, and Syria until the foreign partners necessary to Israel’s security and economy insist, soberly and relentlessly, on creating one.
That will require tough new sanctions, not just wordplay. The things that have to be admitted are too hard, and the promises that must be broken are too many, for any Israeli leader to act alone.
Amanda Pilz served for 22 years as a U.S. Foreign Service Officer. She is a former U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Israeli-Palestinian affairs.
Login
