Students Packed Slavija Three Days Before the Election - and the Regime Media Noticed Nothing

On the evening of 22 October, Belgrade's Slavija Square was too small. The final pre-election rally of the student list "Students Win", under the slogan "Victory Is Calling", filled the square and the surrounding streets with flares, mobile phone lights and chants of "Vučić is leaving". Three days before the 25 October election, that is a message that is hard to ignore.

Hard, unless you are a regime outlet. Serbia's pro-government media didn't cover the rally at all, writing instead about the rallies of Aleksandar Vučić's supporters. If you switch off the cameras, does the square disappear too? The Balkans know this technique by heart.

The rector of the University of Belgrade, Vladan Đokić, also came to Slavija. Student Natalija Stepanović said the students' demands can be met "only through a change of government" and that in 150 years someone will say: "This is where they were, and this is where the change began!" The list's lead candidate, Ilija Srdanović, rounded off the message: "Our mandates will be in your hands, in the hands of the people. On 25 October, Serbia wins!" The candidates came down from the stage holding up copies of Serbia's Constitution, and the evening ended with "March on the Drina".

The context is familiar. The mass protest of 15 March 2025 carried the slogan "15 for 15", after the 15 people who had by then died when the canopy collapsed at the Novi Sad railway station. The Archive of Public Gatherings estimated at the time between 275,000 and 325,000 participants. One of those at Slavija now said there were "even more people than on 15 March". That is an estimate from the square, not from a counter, but it captures the atmosphere.

Bottles after the rally

After the rally, Belgrade got a different picture. Supporters of the ruling Serbian Progressive Party (SNS), who had earlier held their own rally in the "Ranko Žeravica" sports hall, moved through New Belgrade with flags and flares. There they ran into supporters of the student list returning from Slavija, and bottles flew several times. Who threw them has not been made public. In Zemun, according to media reports, SNS supporters shouted "Ustashas, Ustashas" at passers-by who were filming them and threw bottles at them. The police were on the ground, and there were no direct clashes.

Ahead of the election, a Belgrade court detained five men on suspicion of planning violence and unrest. One of them holds a Croatian passport, so Zagreb hurried to distance itself: Prime Minister Andrej Plenković said that someone having a Croatian passport "does not mean they have any connection with the Croatian state" and that Croatia is "in no way" interfering in Serbia's election.

In Niš, meanwhile, foreign influencers came to support Vučić and praised Serbia as "Europe from 30 years ago", with messages that were described as racist and Islamophobic. The polls point to a narrow lead for the student list. Whether a government that can't see the biggest square in the capital on its own TV channels can lose at the ballot box, we'll know in three days.