A year after a station canopy collapse in Novi Sad killed 16 people and ignited Serbia\u2019s largest youth-led protests since the fall of Slobodan Milo\u0161evi\u0107, the student movement that shook the country is wrestling with its next move: take the fight to elections or keep building power outside a system they long rejected.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Midway through a 16-day, 250-mile (400km) march from Novi Pazar to Novi Sad, student organizer Inas Hod\u017ei\u0107 embodied the movement\u2019s stamina and sharpened demands. On Saturday\u2014exactly one year after the disaster\u2014he and tens of thousands more are set to rally in Novi Sad to tell President Aleksandar Vu\u010di\u0107 they will not stand down. \u201cIf, after everything, a new government fails to bring justice for the 16 victims, they will face the same fate as this government,\u201d Hod\u017ei\u0107 said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
What began last autumn as a howl against corruption, repression and shoddy public works has evolved into a strategic debate. In December, open \u201cplenums\u201d forged unity around refusing engagement with established institutions. Today that once-binding principle is the movement\u2019s fault line.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The split sharpened after the European parliament issued its harshest rebuke yet of Vu\u010di\u0107\u2019s government. Some students welcomed the support; others condemned \u201cattempts to co-opt the student movement.\u201d Meanwhile, a bloc pushing for emergency elections has started assembling an electoral list of candidates drawn from outside Serbia\u2019s party system\u2014and a growing swath of society is urging opposition parties to sit out in favor of the students\u2019 slate. Two parties have already pledged to do so.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe system needs a reset, independently of political parties,\u201d said energy worker Branislav Manojlovi\u0107. \u201cThat can only happen through the student electoral list guided by justice, solidarity and empathy.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Skeptics warn that entering elections risks diluting a horizontal movement under pressure from arrests, alleged police brutality and relentless media attacks. \u201cThe call for elections was imposed as an \u2018inevitable next step,\u2019 but it means returning to the very system we initially rejected,\u201d said film student Sini\u0161a Cveti\u0107, who favors deepening direct-democracy structures and alliances with workers and farmers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Others stake out a middle ground. Elections, argues scholar Ivica Mladenovi\u0107, can \u201csymbolically challenge\u201d a captured state, but only if tied to longer struggles for autonomous unions, free education and independent media. \u201cIf the fight for elections becomes just a fight to change the government, it loses its emancipatory potential,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
For Durham University professor Jana Bacevic, the turn to ballots exposes the limits of liberal democracy itself: \u201cYou cannot, except through violent revolution, move that system out of place,\u201d she said, noting Serbia\u2019s only decisive rupture came in 1944.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Vu\u010di\u0107 has dismissed the protests as a destabilization campaign and rebuffed calls for early elections, insisting Serbia will vote before the 2027 deadline while pursuing electoral reforms. Authorities deny accusations of police brutality even as scores of students and supporters have been detained in recent months.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Despite internal disagreements, few doubt what the movement has already changed. \u201cThe students awakened us from collective apathy,\u201d said Manojlovi\u0107. \u201cElections alone won\u2019t change everything, so we must preserve what the movement created: constant civic participation.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
As marchers converge on Novi Sad a year after the tragedy that galvanized them, Serbia\u2019s radicalized student generation faces its most consequential decision yet\u2014whether to try to transform the system from within, or continue to confront it from the streets.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A year after a station canopy collapse in Novi Sad killed 16 people and ignited Serbia\u2019s largest youth-led protests since the fall of Slobodan Milo\u0161evi\u0107, the student movement that shook the country is wrestling with its next move: take the fight to elections or keep building power outside a system they long rejected. Midway through […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":6596,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6595","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-5"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hernet.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6595","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hernet.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hernet.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hernet.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hernet.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6595"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/hernet.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6595\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6603,"href":"https:\/\/hernet.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6595\/revisions\/6603"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hernet.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/6596"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hernet.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6595"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hernet.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6595"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hernet.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6595"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}