Who Brought Down Vučić: A Cardiologist, a Playwright, Bodiroga and the Engineer Who Warned About Novi Sad

Who beat Vučić? Not another party, not a famous opposition figure, not someone waiting their turn for power. He was beaten by a list made up of doctors, professors, actors, athletes and one engineer - a list that did not exist two years ago. And that is exactly its greatest strength, and its greatest risk.

The Student List grew out of the protests after the collapse of the station canopy in Novi Sad in November 2024, which killed 16 people. It was formally founded in September by 14 people, most of them university professors. It collected more than 70,000 signatures of support and submitted its candidacy to the Republic Electoral Commission on September 14. According to projections, it won 52.9 percent and 140 of the 250 seats in parliament.

The list leader is not automatically prime minister

At the top of the list is Ilija Srdanović, a cardiologist and professor at the Faculty of Medicine in Novi Sad. He is not a professional politician and, importantly, heading the list does not automatically mean the prime minister's chair. Who will lead the government has not yet been said. Second on the list is doctor Katarina Stanković, third is playwright Željko Hubač, known for TV series and theatre, and fourth is surgeon Aleksandar Cvetković. Actor Tihomir Stanić is eighth.

Bodiroga, a central bank governor and a farmer against lithium

At number 24 is Dejan Bodiroga, a two-time world and three-time European champion with Yugoslavia and president of the EuroLeague. At number 27 is economist Dejan Šoškić, governor of the National Bank of Serbia from 2010 to 2012. Sociologist Jovo Bakić, a long-time critic of Vučić, is at 76. The list also includes former athletics international Mihail Dudaš, former footballer Mirko Poledica, lawyer Feđa Dimović from the band "Beogradski sindikat", psychologist Aleksandar Baucal and Mirjana Nikolić, rector of the University of Arts.

Two of them are a story of their own. Zlatko Kokanović is a farmer and one of the loudest faces against the "Jadar" lithium mining project backed by Rio Tinto. Zoran Đajić is an engineer who worked on the Novi Sad station and publicly pointed to irregularities in its reconstruction. The man who warned before the canopy fell is now on the list that brought the government down. Is there a stronger image of how a system that refuses to listen comes to an end?

An 11-point programme, so far only on paper

The programme has 11 points in three parts: fighting corruption, independent institutions and accountability for officials. Proposals include a dedicated prosecutorial police force, an audit of the Interior Ministry, checks on officials' assets, lustration, free textbooks and cheaper medicines. For now all of that is promises that depend on the future government.

The list has no single dominant leader, and most of its candidates have never held high state office. In a campaign that is an advantage: nobody can blame them for the past. In government, it becomes a test. How many movements in the Balkans started out on the street with clean hands and ended up lost in ministers' offices? The professors now have to prove they are different.