Serbia's Student-Led Movement Ousts Strongman Aleksander Vučić in Shock Election Result

Serbia's longtime leader Aleksander Vučić has been swept out of power by a historic student-led opposition movement against Vučić's right-wing Serbian Progressive Party. Candidates from the Student List, who are not students themselves but largely first-time politicians selected by student-led popular assemblies, won a majority of seats in Sunday's parliamentary elections, marking a seismic shift in Serbian politics. Their victory comes two years into a student-led movement sparked by the collapse of a roof at a train station in the city of Novi Sad, which killed 16 people. The disaster became a focal point for anti-government protests over corruption, cronyism, political violence and democratic backsliding.

"Students really changed the whole political landscape of the country, and maybe even more important, they changed political imagination. They changed our understanding of what's politically possible for all of us," says journalist Lela Vujanić, who speaks to us from Belgrade about the groundbreaking elections. "This was a great democratic opening and democratic awakening, not only for the students, but for the rest of the country also."