Petar Juršić: ideas and stories

Novi Sad: from canopy to ballot

5 min read

A canopy collapse in Novi Sad turned a protest movement into a ballot list

Hook

A concrete canopy fell on a railway station in Novi Sad and killed 16 people. Almost two years later the protest it started won an election.

Claim

The Serbian Student List grew out of protests that began after the Novi Sad station canopy collapse on 1 November 2024. It is a citizens’ association, not a party (registered 21 May 2026; statute adopted 11 May), and on 25 October 2026 it won the snap parliamentary election. Aleksandar Vucic resigned as president on 27 September 2026 to run for prime minister, and he conceded on election night, around 21:30, before final results.

Timeline from sources (as of 2026-11-04):

  • 1 Nov 2024: canopy collapse at Novi Sad railway station, 16 dead (Al Jazeera; EUobserver).
  • Protests ran for nearly two years and were called the most serious challenge to Vucic’s rule in more than a decade (Al Jazeera). Demands: investigations into allegedly ill-gotten property, anti-corruption measures, less political interference, transparency in public spending.
  • 27 Sep 2026: Vucic resigns as president, ending his second and last term early, to run for prime minister on the SNS list. Speaker Ana Brnabic becomes acting president. Before leaving he pardoned 49 people, 23 of them convicted in connection with the protests (Al Jazeera).
  • 25 Oct 2026: election. Preliminary RIK count (8,135 polling stations): Student List 52.65% (2,246,423 votes), “Aleksandar Vucic - United Serbia” 39.22% (1,673,241), Dacic’s list 2.17%, turnout 68.78% (srbija.gov.rs). Voting was repeated at 53 polling stations on 1 Nov. Tanjug (2 Nov) reports the figures after the repeat: Student List 53.01%, United Serbia 38.98%.
  • Vucic conceded at SNS headquarters: “We don’t have the final results yet, but based on a stratified sample it is clear we lost” (RTS, Meduza). He called it the “studentsko-blokaderska lista” and estimated 135-140 seats for it and about 105 for his own.
  • The Student List itself: association registered 21 May 2026 (N1, 3 Aug 2026). Meduza’s “formally established just over a month before the election” most likely refers to the electoral list, not the association, and is not used.
  • Seats: not final. Wikipedia: 140 vs 103. EUobserver and an RIK count reported by Serbian outlets: 140 vs 104. Novosti (99.6% counted): 141 vs 103. RIK has 96 hours after the repeat vote to publish its report, then 10 days to allocate seats (Tanjug, 2 Nov).
  • Parliament and government: not yet constituted, no prime minister named as of 2026-11-04 (found in no source). The first session must be held within 30 days of the results being proclaimed, and a government within 90 days after the Assembly is formed (Tanjug). Names floated: Srdanovic, Soskic (HRT speculation, unsourced). The Student List named no candidate for prime minister in the campaign.
  • Presidential election: December 2026 (EUobserver; exact date not given).
  • Canopy case, as of 2026-11-04: indictment of 13 people filed September 2025; a lower court halted it for six defendants in December 2025; the Novi Sad Court of Appeals reversed that on 15 June 2026 (reported 13 July) and confirmed it against Goran Vesic, Jelena Tanaskovic, Anita Dimoski, Milan Spremic, Marina Gavrilovic and Dejan Todorovic. No trial date yet (Vreme, N1).

Vucic did not resign after losing. He left the presidency in September to run for prime minister, then conceded the election.

Story

The lead candidate is Ilija Srdanovic, a cardiologist and medicine professor from Novi Sad, the city where the canopy fell. Despite the name, the list has no students on it, and it has no formal leader (Friedrich Naumann Foundation; BBC via Index). Dejan Soskic, former governor of the National Bank of Serbia, is on the list (European Western Balkans, not re-opened).

Sources

Check before posting

  • Final RIK seat table and final vote counts (RIK site rik.parlament.gov.rs results page showed placeholders when opened).
  • Constitutive session date and prime minister (none found as of 2026-11-04).
  • Date of the decree dissolving parliament (not confirmed, left out).
  • Trial start date in the canopy case.

Resolved 2026-11-04: resignation date and concession confirmed; “formally established” corrected (association registered 21 May 2026); post-repeat percentages found (Tanjug); canopy indictment status found.

Counterargument

An election win is not proof that the movement’s demands were met. The Student List is a citizens’ group with a short track record, and Vucic’s party still holds about 103-104 seats.

Post angles

Facebook (Croatian) Sve je počelo tugom. U Novom Sadu se srušila betonska nadstrešnica na željezničkoj stanici i poginulo je 16 ljudi. Prosvjedi su trajali gotovo dvije godine. U rujnu je Vučić podnio ostavku na mjesto predsjednika da bi se kandidirao za premijera, a 25. listopada je Studentska lista dobila izbore s oko 53 posto glasova. Zanimljivo je kako je jedna konkretna, vidljiva greška ljude navela da izađu na izbore.

LinkedIn (English) Serbia’s election shows how one visible failure can reshape politics. A station canopy fell in Novi Sad in November 2024 and killed 16 people. After almost two years of protest, a student-backed list won about 53% on 68.8% turnout (RIK, after repeat voting). The path is the interesting part: from a specific, checkable failure to a line on the ballot.

The Student List won Serbia by turning the highest turnout since 1992 into a majority Protesters can win an election, but governing is a different skill Entrenched power can lose, and Serbia and Hungary show it in the same year People stop taking part when their input visibly changes nothing

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