Demonstrations in Serbia

The struggle of a society for itself

Since the collapse of a train station canopy in Novi Sad, Serbia’s second-largest city, on 1 November 2024, the Balkan state with seven million inhabitants has not been at peace. Under the slogan “Corruption kills!”, students have vented their anger that the autocratic rule of President Aleksandar Vučić robs them of their future in their own country. Twenty-year-olds today know little other than the omnipresent kleptocracy of the Serbian Progressive Party, which has merged the state and the party into one entity.

For four months now, students across Serbia have been demanding that the institutions act in accordance with the rule of law, which is synonymous with an end to the Vučić government. They are blockading universities, calling for general strikes and are supported by large sections of the population. Protests have taken place in over two hundred towns and cities in recent months, with students calling for the largest mass demonstration on 15 March.

A mass movement in the truest sense of the word

Groups of students set off on foot from southern Serbia towards Belgrade a week ago, knowing that the government will do everything it can to prevent them from traveling to the capital on the weekend of the protest. In the villages along the route, they were greeted with fireworks and ćevapi. Where mayors loyal to the regime locked up schools and gyms for overnight stays, citizens opened their front doors to offer young protesters a bed and a shower. Thousands of people were walking to the capital across Serbia these days.

Meanwhile, President Aleksandar Vučić was making use of the entire range of autocratic rule: the protests were a color revolution controlled from abroad with the aim of destroying Serbia and therefore “illegal”, the president and regime media proclaimed in unison. In a speech broadcasted live on all TV channels, of which there have already been over a hundred this year alone, Vučić announced that violence will be met with violence and that anyone who “throws even one egg” will be arrested for violating the constitutional order.

On Friday, the state railroad company announced that “due to a bomb threat” all train services in Serbia will be suspended indefinitely. The state-owned bus companies cancelled all connections to Belgrade. And while tens of thousands of citizens gave the students from all parts of Serbia a moving reception in a parade in Belgrade’s city center on Friday evening, a game show was shown on the public broadcaster RTS.

And yet: on Saturday night, the whistles of the groups of students returning from the city center could be heard in all parts of Belgrade. By this night at the latest, the people of the generation that failed to preserve Serbian democracy after the fall of Slobodan Milošević 25 years ago were shaken awake in the truest sense of the word: Tomorrow counts!

The largest demonstration in the history of Serbia

On Saturday morning, veterans, bikers and farmers with tractors arrive in the city center to protect the demonstrators. Tens of thousands of citizens from Serbia form carpools and set off for Belgrade despite all the harassment and blocked roads. In addition, the Partizan Belgrade hooligans, known as “gravediggers”, declare that they will defend the students in the event of attacks. It is a protest across all social classes.

Experts estimate that between 200,000 and 300,000 people gather around the “Slavija” roundabout on Saturday afternoon – more than when Milošević was overthrown. The Serbian Ministry of the Interior admits 107,000 participants. It is impressive how people from all parts of the city are flocking together, and they are doing so peacefully. “No individual should be above the law or above the institutions,” a student shouts to the crowd from the stage. “Not an individual is the state, we are the state!” It is an open challenge to the Vučić system. On public television, game show is aired.

The students had announced that the protest had to remain absolutely peaceful if they wanted to credibly stand up for the rule of law. When fireworks were thrown at demonstrators during the minute's silence for the victims of Novi Sad and panic broke out elsewhere, the students broke off the rally and immediately returned to the occupied faculties. The following day, experts claim that the panic was triggered by the use of an illegal sound cannon. If this turns out to be true, it would be a new stage of escalation by the Belgrade regime against its own population.

Serbia, what now?

What remains of the largest demonstration in Serbia’s history is a strange emptiness. While President Vučić acknowledges “the enormous negative energy and anger” and at the same time states that “the majority of Serbs” do not want a colour revolution, the students announce further actions without being more specific.

The confusion is also due to the movement’s vague demands: “for the rule of law” and “against corruption” are honourable goals, but can hardly be achieved without concrete political steps. Until now, the student movement had deliberately distanced itself from politics, arguing that this was a social protest. Although broad sections of the population rallied behind them – everything from nationalist symbolism to progressive slogans could be seen on Saturday – there is no social consensus on how the goals should be achieved.

President Vučić strictly rejects the formation of a transitional government. Someone will have to kill him for that, he said in his usual melodramatic tone. After the elections in 2023 and 2024, which were overshadowed by allegations of fraud and in which his Progress Party emerged victorious, new elections are not an option under the current conditions. “In our autocratic regime, elections are an instrument to prevent change,” says democracy activist Raša Nedeljkov from the foundation’s partner organization CRTA.

Nothing is being heard from the EU about any of this. Since the unsuccessful protests in 2020 and 2023, many Serbs no longer believe that the European Union will stand by them. This may be due to disagreement among the member states – President Vučić has received messages of support from Hungary, Slovakia and Moscow – or the leadership vacuum at EU and national level, but Vučić seems too important for the stability of the region. This is all the more cynical as one of his tried and tested methods is to create tensions in Bosnia and Herzegovina or Kosovo in order to distract attention from problems at home.

Both the citizens of Serbia and the EU must decide what they want: The former whether they want to continue to express a diffuse dissatisfaction with the system, or take political responsibility for sustainable democratic change. The latter whether they want to continue to dismiss Serbia as an erratic autocracy under Aleksandar Vučić, which appears to be controllable through treaties such as the agreement on lithium mining, or whether they want to support the Serbian population in becoming a pluralistic and democratic society on the path towards EU membership. A clear signal from Brussels could keep the protests alive.

Markus Kaiser is the project director of Friedrich Naumann Foundation for Freedom in the Western Balkans based in Belgrade.