How student assemblies brought down the Serbian government

Almost two years ago, a concrete canopy at a freshly renovated railway station in Serbia’s second city of Novi Sad collapsed. The falling canopy, which the country’s protest movement has blamed on widespread corruption, killed 16 people. Now, it has brought the country’s ruling party down with it. Serbia’s right-wing populist president Aleksandar Vucic conceded defeat in the country’s parliamentary elections on Sunday. Just who exactly he has conceded to remains harder to judge. The force that won the popular vote, and a clear majority of parliamentary seats, is not a traditional opposition party – or any kind of party at all. Instead, the seats will be filled by candidates belonging to the Student List, a collection of little-known academics, economists, athletes, engineers, artists and activists chosen by majority vote by the nameless student assemblies that have sprung up in the universities occupied by demonstrators for almost two years. To display this content from YouTube, you must enable advertisement tracking and audience measurement. One of your browser extensions seems to be blocking the video player from loading. To watch this content, you may need to disable it on this ...