Serbia holds a parliamentary election as populist Vucic faces protesting students

BELGRADE, Serbia -- BELGRADE, Serbia (AP) — Serbians are voting Sunday in a parliamentary election that is seen as a showdown between the Balkan country's populist leader Aleksandar Vucic and a movement of university students who led protests against him for almost two years.Though Serbia's 6.4 million voters get to choose from 18 parties hoping to enter the 250-member Parliament, the election has taken shaped as a referendum between Vucic's right-wing Serbian Progressive Party and the youth-backed Students' List.The main contenders are believed to be polling neck-and-neck, making Sunday's election the most uncertain in recent years. Turnout is expected to be high and could push most smaller parties below the 3% threshold needed to make it into the assembly. While Vucic has routinely outplayed Serbia's fractured opposition in the past, the leaderless youth movement has proved to be a tough opponent that rattled his firm grip on power in Serbia like no one else could in the past 14 years since his party took office.A students' victory likely would resonate beyond Serbia as countries across Europe face youth and student protests. Recent elections have been marred by irregularities an...