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Serbia election results: Student List wins a majority as Vučić concedes

Two international election observers wearing accreditation badges stand at the glass doors of a Belgrade school, where official signs bearing Serbia's coat of arms read "Elections 2026, polling station" with station numbers including 63, 64, 65 and 67.
Official signs mark several polling stations at a school in Belgrade during Serbia's parliamentary election on October 25, as two OSCE Parliamentary Assembly observers stand outside. Photograph: OSCE Parliamentary Assembly/Flickr, CC BY-SA 4.0. Cropped.

The Student List, the slate built by the student-led protest movement, has won Serbia's snap parliamentary election, ending Aleksandar Vučić's 12 years at the top of Serbian politics. In the preliminary count of the Republic Electoral Commission (RIK), stamped 2:05 p.m. Belgrade time on Monday, October 26 (9:05 a.m. ET), with 8,143 of 8,392 polling stations processed, the Student List had 2,247,516 votes, or 52.64%. Vučić's United Serbia list had 1,674,435, or 39.22%.

Vučić conceded on Sunday night, before the official count was complete. "It is clear that we have lost these elections, the Student List has won," he said in a televised speech, Reuters reported. He said the students would have between 135 and 140 of the 250 seats and his Serbian Progressive Party (SNS) 105, based on preliminary results.

The RIK count

All figures below are from the RIK preliminary results for the October 25 parliamentary election, stamped 2:05 p.m. Belgrade time on October 26, 2026. RIK states vote shares as a share of ballots found in the ballot boxes.

The Student List's lead is 573,081 votes. The stations not yet processed have 244,299 registered voters. If they vote at the same rate as the rest of the country, they would cast about 168,135 ballots, fewer than the gap. The outcome cannot change on the remaining count, even if every one of those ballots went to United Serbia.

Why early numbers pointed the other way

RIK's first published count, from 203 polling stations on Sunday evening, had United Serbia ahead with 54.69% to the Student List's 36.04%, Tanjug reported. The first stations to report are not a sample of the country. Vučić said he was conceding on the basis of a sample, not the official count. Every projection Ipsos and CeSID published from their sample of polling stations, starting with the first at 51.1% of the sample, had the Student List ahead, RTS reported. On Sunday night their projection gave the Student List 52.9% and 141 seats, and United Serbia 38.8% and 103, the Guardian reported. The monitoring group CRTA projected 51.2% and 134 seats.

Who wins seats, and how many

Seats are shared out among lists that pass a threshold of 3% of the people who voted, using the D'Hondt method across 250 seats, under Articles 128 and 129 of the Law on the Election of MPs. Amendments passed in May 2026 did not change those rules. Lists with national-minority status do not need to pass the threshold, and their totals are weighted up by 35% when seats are divided (Article 140). Nine of the 18 lists on the ballot have that status, according to RTS and ZA media reports of RIK's decisions.

On the 2:05 p.m. count, the threshold is 128,156 votes. Only two lists clear it: the Student List and United Serbia. Dačić's list is 35,565 votes short.

Applying the law to the RIK count, our own projection gives:

This is our projection from RIK's partial count, not an official allocation; RIK has not assigned any seats. Ipsos and CeSID's latest projection, published on Monday from 96% of their sample rather than from RIK's count, matches ours for the Student List at 140 but gives United Serbia 103 and the Alliance of Vojvodina Hungarians 3, Balkan Insight reported. The last seats in our projection are close: on RIK's count, Usame Zukorlić's list is 286 votes short of a seat and the Hungarian alliance 918 votes short of a third, so ours can still move as the last stations are counted. It also assumes the minority lists keep their status. In September the leader of the Roma Party said he would take the status of Rasim Ljajić's list to the courts, including the Constitutional Court, srpske.rs reported. If that list lost its status, its one seat in our projection would go to another list. A government needs the votes of 126 MPs. On this count the Student List would have 14 more than that on its own. It would be 27 short of the 167 votes needed to change the Constitution.

What these numbers cannot show: RIK publishes totals by polling station, not who individual voters were. The figures show the opposition vote gathered behind one list: the two biggest lists took 91.9% of ballots, and the European Serbia list of former opposition leaders Marinika Tepić and Zdravko Ponoš got 12,045 votes (0.28%). They do not show how many Student List voters were first-time voters, past SNS voters or past opposition voters.

Turnout

Turnout at the stations processed is 68.82%. Reuters reported that pollsters and the commission put turnout close to 70%, the highest since the breakup of Yugoslavia in 1992. DW reported the same. The Guardian said it was the highest since the first election in 1990. Long lines formed outside polling stations, and Vučić himself waited nearly two hours to vote in Belgrade, Reuters said. The final national figure will depend on the 249 stations still out.

What the leaders said

The Guardian quoted Vučić at more length: "We still do not have final results... On the basis of a sample … it is clear that we have lost these elections, the Student List has won, they will have between 135 and 140 seats and we will have 105." He told supporters: "Some businessmen, some people will leave us but our structure is firm, we are very united, very strong, we are used to being in the opposition," Reuters reported.

DW reported that Vučić blamed independent media for the loss and alleged interference by unnamed European countries and the "American deep state." RIA Novosti reported that he promised not to obstruct the winners and did not rule out that a new government could impose sanctions on Russia in March or April.

Radomir Saičić, a Belgrade University professor speaking for the students at their headquarters, said: "Dear Serbia, tonight the voice of the people is being heard. Tonight we celebrate victory, tomorrow we build the future." The list's lead candidate, cardiologist Ilija Srdanović, told BBC Serbian: "This will be a free state." Reuters reported that it is still unclear who the Student List will put forward as prime minister.

Dačić said he was not satisfied with the result and congratulated the winners. "More than 100,000 people voted for our list in these conditions," he said, RTS reported. That is more than the 92,591 votes RIK had counted for his list at 2:05 p.m.

Reactions abroad

What others report

What comes next: analysis

This section is analysis. It rests on the Constitution, the election law and the sources named, not on decisions that have already been made.

The count becomes final. RIK still has to process 249 stations, publish the final results and assign seats. The law gives it 10 days from the overall results report to hand out mandates. Complaints from lists or monitors could add time.

Parliament sits. Under Article 101 of the Constitution, the first sitting is called by the speaker of the outgoing parliament and must take place no later than 30 days after final results are proclaimed. That speaker is Ana Brnabić, a close Vučić ally who is also acting president. The new parliament is constituted once two-thirds of MPs have their mandates confirmed. With about 140 seats, the Student List would have the votes to elect the new speaker without help.

A government. Under Article 127, the president proposes a candidate for prime minister after hearing the elected lists. The government is elected by a majority of all 250 MPs, so 126 votes. Under Article 120, the speaker stands in for a president who has left office, for no more than three months. Our reading: once the new parliament elects its speaker, that person, very likely from the Student List, becomes acting president and proposes the prime minister. That would leave the choice of prime minister with the winners, not with Vučić's allies. The Student List has not named its candidate.

A presidential election. Vučić resigned the presidency to run for prime minister. Article 120 requires the speaker to call a presidential election to be held within three months of the office falling vacant, which the Guardian reported means before the end of the year. Vučić's camp would go into that vote off a 13-point defeat, and the Student List would have to pick a candidate while also forming a government.

Limits of a majority. About 140 seats is enough to govern alone but not to change the Constitution, which needs 167. Any constitutional change would need United Serbia's votes: even with all six minority MPs in our projection, the Student List would be 21 short.

Russia, China and the EU. Reuters noted that the students have been quieter about foreign policy than about corruption and schools and, like Vučić, will have to balance China, a major investor, Russia, Serbia's main gas supplier, and the EU, its largest trading partner. Brussels has made its offer public. Moscow's first response praised Vučić and said close ties would also depend on the new government; Beijing said it was ready to work with it. The idea of sanctions on Russia comes from Vučić; the Student List has not said it will impose them.

What we don't know

Context

When Vučić resigned to run for prime minister: Serbia's Vučić resigns the presidency.

Sources

Vučić's list lost by more than half a million votes, on a turnout Reuters and DW reported as the highest since 1992. The Student List can govern on its own but cannot change the Constitution alone, and it still has to name a prime minister.

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