Serbia's students demand resignations in police, judiciary as they prepare to take power

BELGRADE, Serbia (AP) — Serbia 's student movement on Thursday demanded the resignations of top officials in the police, intelligence agencies and the judiciary as they prepare to take power after a historic election win last weekend against former strongman leader Aleksandar Vucic.

The students at a news conference also urged Serbia's election authorities to officially declare the final results of Sunday's ballot without delay after a rerun at some 50 polling stations next Sunday, so that a new Parliament and government can be formed.

The Students’ List movement swept the parliamentary election on Sunday against Vucic’s right-wing Serbian Progressive Party, which has ruled unchallenged for 14 years. The outgoing authorities remain in control as the formal transition of power will take several weeks.

“Changes are starting now,” student Filip Ubovic said at the news conference held at a central Belgrade park that used to be a sealed-off area occupied by Vucic's loyalists. “Institutions belong to the citizens and the law applies to everyone.”

Vucic's party has gradually taken control over all state institutions since it came to power in 2012. The SNS party has been accused of rampant corruption and cronyism, links to organized crime and pressure on the judiciary, police and the media, which the populists have denied.

The students on Thursday asked public servants to prevent outgoing officials from destroying documentation or evidence of potential wrongdoing.

Vucic on Thursday held a news conference of his own, accusing the election winners of “revolutionary terror" after groups of people stormed the Informer TV station that led the preelection propaganda branding the students as traitors and enemies of the state.

Suspicions of state corruption in infrastructure projects two years ago set off a wave of street protests after a collapsed canopy at a train station in Serbia's north killed 16 people after a renovation. The students led those protests before challenging and defeating Vucic at the early ballot on Sunday.

The students' win on Sunday marks the first time that a grass-root youth movement toppled a well-established political leader. It comes at the moment when similar movements are mushrooming across Europe.

The students said in their briefing that top police officials and the intelligence agencies had served Vucic's party during the protests in violation of the law. They have been accused of using excessive force against protesters, illegal surveillance, detention and pressure on Vucic's political opponents.

The students also demanded changes in the judiciary and urgent investigations in top-level corruption cases that might have been sidelined due to political pressure under Vucic. They promised that all contracts and public spending deals will be reviewed.

“The Students' List is not here to take revenge,” Ubovic said. “We are not asking for political service but for the adherence to the laws, professionalism and responsibility.”

There was no immediate response from the police commanders, judges and prosecutors who the students asked to step down.

The general manager of the state Serbian RTS television, Manja Grcic, has resigned while the public broadcaster's branch in Novi Sad, the site of the November 2024 train station tragedy, has apologized to the viewers for selective and non-professional reporting.

Serbia is formally seeking European Union membership but the bid has stalled under Vucic due to democratic backsliding and close ties to Russia. EU officials have offered help to the new authorities in boosting Serbia's democracy and the rule of law.

Mirjana Nikolic, right, rector of the University of Arts, speaks during a news conference by Serbia's student movement demanding the resignations of top police and security officials in Belgrade, Serbia, Thursday, Oct. 29, 2026. (AP Photo/Darko Vojinovic)

Jovan Vujicic, center, an assistant professor at the Faculty of Law of the University of Kragujevac, speaks during a news conference by Serbia's student movement demanding the resignations of top police and security officials in Belgrade, Serbia, Thursday, Oct. 29, 2026. (AP Photo/Darko Vojinovic)

Student Filip Ubovic speaks during a news conference by Serbia's student movement demanding the resignations of top police and security officials in Belgrade, Serbia, Thursday, Oct. 29, 2026. (AP Photo/Darko Vojinovic)

Student Filip Ubovic speaks during a news conference by Serbia's student movement demanding the resignations of top police and security officials in Belgrade, Serbia, Thursday, Oct. 29, 2026. (AP Photo/Darko Vojinovic)

WASHINGTON (AP) — Republican Alaska Gov. Mike Dunleavy has ordered an investigation into the Democratic candidate running for the U.S. Senate in the state after revelations that her campaign appeared to be involved in recruiting another candidate with the same name as Republican incumbent Dan Sullivan.

Dunleavy's order, posted overnight on social media, comes a day after President Donald Trump called for the criminal prosecution of Mary Peltola and her campaign.

In a race that's among a handful of Senate contests this year expected to determine control of the chamber, the Republican president had previously directed his Department of Justice to sue to block certification of it, demanding that Alaska be prevented from certifying a win by Peltola if Daniel J. Sullivan Jr. remains on the state's ballots.

Dunleavy wrote that reporting by The New York Times “reveals disturbing new evidence of an organized effort to manipulate Alaska’s elections by recruiting candidates — including one with the same name as an incumbent U.S. Senator — to deliberately confuse voters and misdirect their votes.”

“Deliberately tricking voters into casting their ballots for someone else strikes at the integrity of our elections,” Dunleavy added, noting that the reporting “substantially supports” earlier findings by the state’s elections board into the matter.

Trump on Thursday cast doubt on whether Peltola would be seated in the Senate even if she won the election. “Well, you’re going to have to see what happens," the president told reporters on his way to a rally in South Carolina. "It’s hard to believe that she could even be allowed to run.”

Peltola’s campaign didn’t immediately respond to a message Thursday seeking comment on Dunleavy’s order. But during a campaign stop in Soldotna, Peltola, a former congresswoman, suggested the Times’ report was a “distraction” from issues such as Sen. Sullivan’s support of the war in Iran.

“This is just another distraction. It’s another diversion,” she said in a video posted online. “This is all stuff to sell newspapers. This is all stuff to get subscriptions.”

And the situation in Alaska isn't that unusual. Political parties often support extra candidates on ballots to try to pull votes from their rivals. If state courts allow it, legal experts say, the federal government has no role challenging the results.

In Ohio’s Senate race, Republicans have been tied to an effort to boost a socialist on the ballot who would pull votes from the Democratic candidate challenging Sen. Jon Husted.

On Thursday, Vice President JD Vance didn’t go as far as Trump did in calling for Peltola to be prosecuted but said he supported a probe into possible election fraud.

“I mean, she is a person who, for months now, has pretended that she has had nothing to do with the fact that they have put a fraudulent person, a person explicitly designed to confuse Alaska voters, on the ballot,” Vance told reporters ahead of a campaign trip to Texas. “She is trying to steal a Senate seat from the voters of Alaska, and it’s disgraceful.”

Earlier this year, a top state elections official ruled Daniel J. Sullivan Jr., a retired schoolteacher in the small fishing community of Petersburg, ineligible for the primary ballot, concluding that his declaration of candidacy was filed “with a purpose to confuse or mislead and to thereby compromise the ballot’s fairness or neutrality.”

The case went to the Alaska Supreme Court, which ruled he was qualified to run. He has long denied he was running at Democrats’ behest and has said he had no contact with Peltola’s campaign: “Zero, none, zilch,” he said in June after announcing his run.

Alaskan voters will see “Dan S. Sullivan” identified as a “registered Republican” and “incumbent” on their ballots, while “Daniel J. Sullivan Jr.” will not have a party affiliation.

The New York Times reported that interviews, text messages and documents prepared for a potential lawsuit showed Peltola’s team aimed to coax candidates into the race, with the aim of splitting support for the GOP senator.

Asked about the reporting on Wednesday, Trump told journalists, “I think they should be prosecuted.” He earlier had posted on social media that “Peltola should suffer the Legal and Political consequences for what she has done.”

Meg Kinnard can be reached at http://x.com/MegKinnardAP. AP writer Seung Min Kim contributed to this report.

President Donald Trump speaks with reporters before boarding Air Force One, Thursday, Oct. 29, 2026, at Joint Base Andrews, Md. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

Vice President JD Vance speaks to the media before boarding Air Force Two for Texas, at Joint Base Andrews, Md., Thursday, Oct. 29, 2026. (Evan Vucci/Pool Photo via AP)

FILE - This combination photo shows Sen. Dan Sullivan, R-Alaska, left, in Palmer, Alaska, Aug. 17, 2026, and a candidate in Alaska's Senate race, Dan Sullivan, right, in Petersburg, Alaska, July 3, 2026. (AP Photos/Mark Thiessen/Becky Bohrer, File)

FILE - Alaska Gov. Mike Dunleavy speaks in the Oval Office of the White House during an event with President Donald Trump, Sept. 30, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon, File)

FILE - Mary Peltola, a Democrat running for the U.S. Senate seat in Alaska, addresses supporters at an election watch party on Aug. 18, 2026, in Anchorage, Alaska. (AP Photo/Mark Thiessen, File)