The student-led movement, which began after the Novi Sad rail station disaster in November 2024, is pushing for early elections. Published On 23 May 202623 May 2026Tens of thousands of people, led by university students, have rallied in the Serbian capital to protest against the government and call for early elections.The Novi Sad rail station disaster in November 2024, which killed 16 people, sparked anticorruption protests, calling for a transparent investigation, forcing then-Prime Minister Milos Vucevic to resign.Recommended Stories list of 4 itemsend of listSerbia’s President Aleksandar Vucic later pushed back hard against the protesters.With students leading the anticorruption movement, the demonstrations have snowballed into a campaign to push Vucic to call early elections.Vucic said this week that the ballot could be held between September and November this year. Antigovernment protesters take part in a rally led by Serbia’s protesting university students who are pushing for major political changes in the Balkan country run [Armin Durgut/AP]‘Students win’Protesters streamed into a central square in the capital, Belgrade, from several directions, many carrying banners and wearing T-shirts inscribed with the “Students win” motto of the youth movement.Columns of cars drove into Belgrade from other Serbian towns earlier in the day.Protester Maja Milas Markovic said students “managed to gather us here with their youth and wonderful energy; I really believe that we have [the] right to live normally.”Serbia’s state railway company cancelled all trains to and from Belgrade on Saturday, in a bid to prevent at least some people from coming from other parts of the Balkan country.In the evening, Sporadic clashes broke out between protesters and police near the presidency building and outside a park where Vucic’s supporters have been camping since March last year. Advertisement Police fired teargas and stun grenades as they pushed back protesters further down the street. Protesters set fire to bins filled with rubbish.Before the march, there were concerns of violent conflict between the protesters and Vucic’s loyalists, who are often hooded and masked and who have attacked student protesters in the past.The protests have “huge support from the public, and that’s because they’re an all-encompassing movement … against the government,” Tetyana Kekic, a journalist in Belgrade, told …
