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Serbia's Students Have Won. My Doubts Remain. The student movement's victory over Aleksandar Vučić marks a historic turning point. His political system is already showing signs of coming apart. But after more than three decades of reporting from the Balkans, I remain sceptical that Serbia is about to undergo an equally profound change in its political outlook. Nine days after Serbia's parliamentary election, events are moving remarkably fast. Senior police officials have been detained, investigations are gathering momentum, and some previously loyal media outlets are changing their tone. The Student List has yet to form a government, but Vučić's system of political control is already losing its grip. On election night, I had feared a very different outcome. When police units suddenly withdrew from Belgrade's Kralja Milana Street on October 25, allowing two previously separated columns of demonstrators to join forces, I felt an enormous sense of relief. The result had been unexpectedly decisive – so decisive that even Vučić conceded defeat. The scenario I had feared most, a disputed election followed by violent confrontation, never materialised. The students celebrated their victory peacefully. I was pleased to see them win. But my doubts about the movement's political orientation remain. In April 2025, I was waiting at the Slovak-Austrian border for some 80 Serbian students cycling to Strasbourg to draw Europe's attention to the political crisis back home. What surprised me was the symbolism. Serbian flags were attached to many bicycles. One student had mounted an Orthodox icon on his handlebars. Yet I couldn't see a single European flag. The students were seeking European support, but the symbols they displayed were overwhelmingly national. That alone says little about their political convictions. Still, I found the contrast striking. At a major student demonstration in Kragujevac, I had noticed national flags alongside unmistakably nationalist symbols. When I later raised the subject with student representatives in Vienna, their response was revealing: Kragujevac was a different political environment, they explained. They came from Novi Sad, where people were considerably more liberal. Other protesters I spoke to criticised Vučić not for being too nationalistic, but for being insufficiently so – too moderate, too willing to compromise, particularly over Kosovo and the position of Kosovo Serbs. These were hardly majority views, but neither were they isolated voices. Kragujevac brought back an odd memory. In early 1997, we visited the city's newly elected opposition mayor, Veroljub Stevanović. In the town hall stairwell, an elderly man in a Chetnik uniform enthusiastically celebrated the victory of the Zajedno opposition coalition and the promise of a "new era". It was another age, in a very different Serbia. But I have never forgotten him. A few weeks earlier, I had interviewed Zoran Đinđić for Deutsche Welle. He told me quite bluntly that you couldn't win elections in Serbia without the nationalists. After all, the task was to win elections in Serbia, not in Western Europe. Nearly thirty years later, his observation remains relevant. The students have brought together liberal, pro-European voters and conservative nationalists deeply suspicious of the West. They could agree on corruption, abuse of power and the erosion of state institutions. On Russia, Kosovo or Serbia's place in Europe, probably far less. Avoiding those divisions was politically astute. An open confrontation over fundamental differences might have destroyed the movement's unity long before election day. But governing will require decisions that protesting did not. Among our footage from 1996 is a rally in Banja Luka where Aleksandar Vučić appeared alongside Vojislav Šešelj. We filmed only a few metres from the stage. The Bosnian war had ended just months earlier. The consequences of ethnic cleansing were still painfully visible. Watching those recordings today still sends a shiver down my spine. Yet years later, I was willing to consider that Vučić might have changed. He presented himself as a moderniser, embraced Serbia's European future and even attended the Srebrenica genocide commemoration in 2015. Instead, while manoeuvring between Brussels, Moscow and Beijing, he consolidated an increasingly authoritarian system at home, tightening political control over institutions, business and the media. I have no reason to regret his defeat. But the nationalist attitudes he exploited will not disappear with his loss of power. Across the former Yugoslavia, the political exploitation of national narratives of victimhood remains deeply troubling. Historical experiences and responsibilities differ enormously, yet there is a recurring tendency to emphasise one's own suffering while minimising responsibility for the suffering of others. Vučić did not invent Serbia's narrative of national humiliation and grievance. His political system cultivated it relentlessly, portraying Serbia as a country mistreated by the West and threatened by hostile foreign powers. These beliefs reach far beyond his political base. The students, too, are part of that society. Opposing Vučić tells us surprisingly little about their views on other fundamental questions. The Student List's programme suggests substantial foreign policy continuity: no sanctions against Russia, continued military neutrality and adherence to Serbia's constitution on Kosovo. Nor does it explicitly commit to EU membership. Yet the first days since the election suggest that continuity in national policy need not mean continuity in political practice. Jugoslav Gašić, a Kosovo Serb university lecturer and candidate on the Student List, has ruled out political cooperation with Srpska Lista, Vučić's principal ally among Kosovo Serbs. Gašić insists that support for Kosovo's Serbian community will continue. But ending Srpska Lista's privileged relationship with Belgrade could seriously weaken the patronage networks through which Vučić exercised influence there. Whether this becomes government policy remains uncertain. Meanwhile, the Student List has begun demanding changes in the police, security services and judiciary. Investigations and personnel changes are already under way, while parts of the old political establishment appear to be repositioning themselves. The speed is remarkable. But replacing officials loyal to Vučić is not the same as building institutions independent of political interference. Nor should demands for accountability become a justification for new forms of political pressure on the judiciary. In Belgrade, I frequently hear a more limited expectation of the new leadership: restore the conditions for genuine democratic competition – independent media, the rule of law and free and fair elections. Only then should the wider political contest over Serbia's future begin. This is often described as the task of a technocratic or transitional government. In reality, dismantling Vučić's networks of political control would be anything but technical. It would also require the new leadership to submit its own newly acquired power to genuinely open electoral competition. That would represent a major democratic advance, even without a significant foreign policy shift. The old system appears to be weakening faster than expected. What replaces it will depend not least on whether the elected representatives of the Student List can maintain their unity despite potentially profound political differences. The students managed to set those differences aside long enough to win an election. Now their representatives must do so long enough to establish a democracy in which those differences can be contested openly – and fairly.