Serbia | Expected surprise

Ilija Srdanović, list leader of the student movement, celebrates the election victory. Now it's time to prove that Serbia can really be changed. Photo: AFP/ANDREJ ISAKOVIC It smells like October 5th. On this day in 2000, then-President Slobodan Milošević was overthrown by mass protests in Belgrade. It was a broad alliance of left-liberal, conservative and right-wing forces that brought down the ruler. Today it is the student list that is taking power away from Aleksandar Vučić. He had her in his hands for 14 years. In the early parliamentary elections he called, his Serbian Progressive Party (SNS) received almost 40 percent of the vote, while the student list received more than 50 percent. The majority is so clear that Vučić publicly admitted defeat on Sunday evening.

The election was a referendum – on the SNS, on Vučić, but also on the future of Serbia. After two years of protesting against a corrupt system, the student movement has reached its goal: in parliament and in government. Now she wants to change the country with the combined expertise of the experts she put on the list. Rebuild – according to constitutional principles, with free media, social security. A country from which no one has to leave to have a good life. The promises are great, as is the risk of failure. Like 26 years ago, when the opposition alliance DOS came to power and implemented a neoliberal course imposed by the West, including social upheavals. This ultimately led to the success of the SNS.

The students did a lot of things right. They knocked on doors, presented themselves as an alternative and created their own positive culture. The energy would be put to good use if the sell-off path that has been adopted for decades were abandoned and people did not become dependent. This takes courage. Brussels and Berlin are already waiting to grab the Serbian lithium for the European car companies. Then the joy of Vučić's removal would be short-lived and the development of Serbia into a different country would only be an empty election promise.

With us, no one has to pay to be informed. Sounds like a bad business model? It is too. But independent journalism and participation for everyone are more important to us than profit. Journalism still costs money: research, printing and all the people who do it. That's why we depend on you. We need 300,000 euros by the end of the year.

Donate once or regularly, every amount counts. So that nd remains.