Serbia’s long-standing leader Aleksandar Vučić has admitted defeat to a student-led protest movement in snap parliamentary elections.
Celebrations erupted as crowds descended on the centre of Belgrade, Novi Sad and other cities.
The student movement was formed less than two years ago in response to a railway station disaster blamed on corruption and negligence, but fought the election with candidates from a cross-section of Serbian society.
“It is clear we have lost these elections,” right-wing populist leader Vučić said as he conceded late on Sunday, citing preliminary figures that gave the students 2.2 million votes and his party 1.72 million.
The students were on course to win 52.9% of the vote, according to a later projection by independent pollsters CeSID, with the highest turnout for years of 69.34%.
Vučić had spent two terms as president and could not seek a third term, so was leading his Serbian Progressive Party (SNS) with the aim of returning to the post of prime minister, which he left in 2017.
He called the snap elections after two years of protests triggered by the collapse of a canopy in front of Novi Sad station which killed 16 people.
The Student List’s lead candidate Ilija Srdanović told BBC Serbian: “This will be a free state.”
He said the anti-corruption movement, which had attracted anti-government voters across Serbia, hoped to “free the country from tyranny”.
There were celebrations on the streets of the city, with people dancing and chanting “victory”, cars honking, and fireworks set off. “Serbia is free,” one student told the BBC. “It’s a miracle.”
During a celebration speech, Student List candidate Radomir Saicic said Serbians had shown “no obstacle was greater than their will”, Reuters reported. “No force can forever overpower a people who have decided to take their destiny into their own hands,” he added.
Amid scenes of people dancing in the streets Belgrade, Selena Lebovic said the result was “really fabulous”.
“We are all crying, and what to say. We couldn’t believe that it would be so easy,” she told Reuters.
