BELGRADE, Serbia (AP) — Serbia 's university students have led mass anti-corruption protests for nearly two years. Now they have a more ambitious goal: to beat the Balkan country's powerful populist leader Aleksandar Vucic in the early parliamentary election this weekend.
The former authoritarian president is looking to return as prime minister after the Oct. 25 vote and extend his right-wing party's 14-year rule. Serbia's youth movement, which already rattled the populists during the protests, is the only one standing in the way.
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University students print T-shirts with the number “3,” which identifies the Students’ List ticket on the ballot, and the slogan “Students are winning,” on the main pedestrian street in downtown Belgrade, Serbia, Wednesday, Oct. 14, 2026. (AP Photo/Darko Vojinovic)
Supporters of Serbia's populist leader Aleksandar Vucic leave after a pre-election rally of the ruling Serbian Progressive Party (SNS) ahead of early parliamentary elections in Novi Sad, Serbia, Friday, Oct. 16, 2026. (AP Photo/Darko Vojinovic)
Students, political candidates and citizens hold a replica of the "Victor" monument, a symbol of Belgrade, and carry signatures for the "Student list - Students win" to the Republic Election Commission towards participation in the upcoming parliamentary elections, in Belgrade, Serbia, on Sept. 14, 2026. (AP Photo/Darko Vojinovic)
Psychology professor Aleksandar Baucal listens to questions during an interview with The Associated Press, in Belgrade, Serbia, on Oct. 13, 2026. (AP Photo/Darko Vojinovic)
University students talk with citizens on the main pedestrian street in downtown Belgrade, Serbia, on Oct. 14, 2026. (AP Photo/Darko Vojinovic)
The stakes are high and so are tensions. Vucic's Serbian Progressive Party, or SNS, and the youth-backed Students' List are believed to be running close, making the outcome uncertain and fueling fears of possible violence.
After marching and cycling through Serbia, the students' final campaign rally in Belgrade is expected to draw tens of thousands of people on Thursday.
Here is a look at how the students became a key player in the election:
Unlike high school students in France who are rallying for better education, Serbia's student movement started out as a struggle for justice after a train station tragedy in the country's north killed 16 people in November 2024.
The students' call for accountability for the deaths, which they blamed on rampant corruption, found widespread support. Protests spread, forcing a government collapse and rattling Vucic.
Psychology professor Aleksandar Baucal says the students' drive is rooted in the fact that “their generation grew up in a society that is deeply unjust.”
“They realized that if they gave up, they would give up on their lives,” said Baucal, an early supporter of the students who is now on their election ticket. “This has made them an opponent who can’t give up.”
Two years on, the students have become a well-organized political force, resilient to government crackdowns and widely popular among Serbia’s 6.4 million voters. The students claimed on Sunday that their meetings are being monitored and that authorities plan new detentions.
Their secret, the students say, lies in the movement's democratic ways and solidarity that is completely opposite to Vucic's populist dominance.
“It has been important for us to dismantle the personality cult," Vukasin Djinovic, a student from the northern city of Novi Sad, told The Associated Press.
The students support "democracy, tolerance and respect for everyone's opinion,” he added.
In practice, the movement has no leader or leaders, not even a spokesperson. They say they are all equal, regardless of what part of Serbia they come from or what faculty they are studying at. All important decisions and plans are discussed and voted on in a myriad of so-called plenums, or faculty assemblies, across the country.
It's a stark contrast to Vucic’s one-man rule during his tenures as either president or prime minister over the past 12 years. Acting as an anonymous movement, the students have proven an elusive and slippery adversary for the veteran politician who easily outmaneuvered his opponents in the past.
Vucic has pushed hard against the students with detentions, accusations of anti-state activities and alleged surveillance.
But supporters such as Baucal believe all that pressure “gave the students additional strength and resilience.”
The students chose their Students' List election ticket through proposals and a vetting process that took place at all universities across the country.
Their candidates for the 250-member Parliament include a few familiar faces, along with little-known teachers, professors, experts, athletes, farmers and artists.
The idea, Djinovic said, is to change a government that he said is “plagued by corruption and mafia,” and rebuild democratic institutions, including independent media, so that a free and fair election can be held in the future.
The Students' List has also come up with plans for an economic and social revival.
“We are afraid but we managed to overcome that because we know what we are fighting for,” he said. “All the violence and repression from the regime ... is actually a symbol of their fear.”
Vucic has campaigned fiercely since he resigned as president last month to pursue his bid to become prime minister again. He has accused his opponents of plans to steal the populists' election victory even as his ruling party controls the election authorities and the judiciary.
Vucic's SNS party has been accused in the past of election irregularities, including pressuring and bribing voters and inflating voter lists — accusations it has denied.
International election monitors and the European Union have expressed concern about the safety and fairness of the upcoming vote. Analysts fear that both sides could claim victory on election night, and that Vucic would not concede defeat if he loses.
“Students have shown clearly that they are the force, both as a generation and politically, that can bring about a change,” said Aleksandra Krstic, from Belgrade's Faculty of Political Sciences. “That is what gave people hope, that it can be different after 14 years of the Serbian Progressive Party regime."
But, Krstic added, “we all fear extreme violence."
University students print T-shirts with the number “3,” which identifies the Students’ List ticket on the ballot, and the slogan “Students are winning,” on the main pedestrian street in downtown Belgrade, Serbia, Wednesday, Oct. 14, 2026. (AP Photo/Darko Vojinovic)
Supporters of Serbia's populist leader Aleksandar Vucic leave after a pre-election rally of the ruling Serbian Progressive Party (SNS) ahead of early parliamentary elections in Novi Sad, Serbia, Friday, Oct. 16, 2026. (AP Photo/Darko Vojinovic)
Students, political candidates and citizens hold a replica of the "Victor" monument, a symbol of Belgrade, and carry signatures for the "Student list - Students win" to the Republic Election Commission towards participation in the upcoming parliamentary elections, in Belgrade, Serbia, on Sept. 14, 2026. (AP Photo/Darko Vojinovic)
Psychology professor Aleksandar Baucal listens to questions during an interview with The Associated Press, in Belgrade, Serbia, on Oct. 13, 2026. (AP Photo/Darko Vojinovic)
University students talk with citizens on the main pedestrian street in downtown Belgrade, Serbia, on Oct. 14, 2026. (AP Photo/Darko Vojinovic)
Asian Americans, Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islander adults have become more disillusioned with President Donald Trump and Republicans as the Nov. 3 midterm elections approach, according to a new AP-NORC/AAPI Data poll, giving Democrats a substantial edge on major issues like the economy and health care.
Meanwhile, Trump on Sunday endorsed embattled Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu late in his reelection campaign, a coveted boost because of Trump’s popularity, but one that the American had withheld for months as the vote neared and the leaders’ strategies in the Middle East diverged.
Here's the latest:
The Supreme Court agreed on Monday to consider whether Congress had the constitutional authority to impose a ban on distilling spirits in private homes more than 150 years ago.
Plaintiffs challenging the prohibition on home distilling claim the 1868 law is an antiquated relic of Reconstruction-era politics. They argue that Congress overstepped its taxation powers when it enacted the home distilling ban as part of a tax reform measure designed to curb fraud by commercial distillers.
Government attorneys counter that Congress properly restricted where spirits can be distilled to prevent producers from evading federal excise taxes. They warn that lifting the ban would violate Supreme Court precedent and erode congressional powers.
Federal law makes home distilling a crime punishable by a maximum sentence of five years in prison and a $10,000 fine.
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Rubio told reporters in Uzbekistan that “I think there’s been talks of a meeting. I don’t know anything’s been finalized. But the president has been clear he’d like the war in Ukraine and Russia to end.”
Peskov, meanwhile, said separately that while the possibility of such a meeting has been mentioned, “no substantive proposals or agreements neither regarding the meeting itself nor its potential agenda and content have been discussed or put forward by anyone.”
He added that Russia appreciates Washington’s ongoing mediation efforts, but “a final settlement is certainly impossible without the participation of someone from Kyiv who is prepared to take on responsibility.”
Republican Rep. Mike Lawler and Democratic challenger Cait Conley put aside their political rancor this weekend — at least for one song — during a street fair that had the two candidates dancing near one another.
Lawler hit a little air guitar. Conley was doing a lot of stomping and clapping.
“Great time at the Suffern Street Fair — even found opportunity for a little bipartisan dance off with @CaitforNewYork!” Lawler wrote in a social media video that included a video of the two opponents awkwardly grooving in close proximity. “Even during the heat of a campaign, it’s good to have a little fun.”
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The Democratic congresswoman carried a dull kitchen knife and two pairs of rusty scissors through a county fairgrounds south of Seattle.
She handed them to Beverly Phoenix, who sat hunched over a table in the back of an exhibit hall, volunteering to help neighbors breathe new life into old tools. Now she offered advice to a member of Congress on using a Dremel, a handheld oscillating device, to sharpen the blades.
It was an unassuming campaign stop that reinforced Gluesenkamp Perez’s message of self sufficiency. The owner of an auto repair shop with her husband, Gluesenkamp Perez has positioned herself as someone who can help her party bridge the divide between urban and rural, blue collar and white collar, left and right.
If Democrats are going to take back control of the U.S. House, they need to hold districts like this one in Southwest Washington, which twice elected Gluesenkamp Perez while also supporting Trump in all of his campaigns.
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Chris Martinez feels like Donald Trump has made a fool of him.
The 28-year-old maintenance technician from Casa Grande, Arizona, voted for the Republican president expecting to get a thriving economy and no wars.
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Secretary of State Marco Rubio spoke to reporters in Uzbekistan and was asked to comment on Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s remarks to NBC, in which he said Washington’s intelligence sharing “was blocked for some period of time and then it was deblocked.”
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The economic strain is becoming a growing political concern for Republicans in states they’ve long dominated. President Trump is heading to Kansas on Monday and Iowa later in the week, the latest in a series of stops where he’s trying to energize his base in the final weeks before the midterm elections.
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Trump on Sunday endorsed embattled Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu late in his reelection campaign, a coveted boost because of Trump’s popularity but one that the American had withheld for months as the vote neared and the leaders’ strategies in the Middle East diverged.
Trump said in a post on social media that Netanyahu “has been a Great Warrior Prime Minister, and an even greater Partner for Peace in combating the Islamic Republic of Iran.”
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The absence of an endorsement was a setback for the Likud politician, who had billed his tight ties to the Republican president as a selling point for staying in power.
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Asian Americans, Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islander adults have become more disillusioned with President Donald Trump and Republicans as the Nov. 3 midterm elections approach, according to a new AP-NORC/AAPI Data poll, giving Democrats a substantial edge on major issues like the economy and health care.
The survey, which was conducted from Sept. 8-15 by AAPI Data and The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research, reveals that Trump’s standing on the economy has fallen among AAPI adults over the course of his second term.
About one-quarter of AAPI adults approve of the way Trump is handling his job as president overall. Only about 2 in 10 approve of his performance on the economy, which the vast majority of AAPI adults see as one of the most important issues for the upcoming election.
But although AAPI adults trust Democrats more than Republicans on a wide range of issues, views of the Democratic Party itself are still split.
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FILE - Chinese Americans supporters of former President Donald Trump stand outside the hotel where the 2023 Fall California Republican Convention is being held in Anaheim, Calif., Sept. 29, 2023. (AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes, File)
President Donald Trump walks on the South Lawn upon his arrival to the White House, Sunday, Oct. 18, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)
