After students voted out Vučić, can Serbia’s uprising against ‘evil’ change how the state really works?

It is evening a few days after the Serbian election, and young people have gathered in central Belgrade. The group has laid out paints and brushes on the pavement. Until a few days ago, the building had been graffitied with insults towards student protesters. A young woman writes a student protest slogan on the wall in Serbian: “Love is in the streets.” It is one of the slogans that accompanied the student protests. “We are trying to turn the city into a kind of gallery,” explained 17-year-old student protester Adam. He wants to wipe away insulting graffiti covering Belgrade’s streets. “It was a truly difficult struggle. I took part in student blockades and in almost every protest. We are proud Serbia managed to defeat the system breathing down our necks for the last 14 years,” Adam said. Serbia is processing the student movement’s triumph over then-president Aleksandar Vučić. As students repainted the streets, police arrested the head of criminal police on suspicion of abuse of office, while the director of public broadcaster RTS resigned after being accused of spreading pro-government propaganda. Protests commemorate station tragedy Students were beginning to gather outside the Faculty of Law at the University of Belgrade. Among them were people old enough to be those students' grandparents. It was Friday, five days after the Student List’s election victory on Sunday (25 October). A busy road runs past the university, with cars and public transport travelling in both directions. As 11:52 approached, those gathering outside the faculty stepped onto the road to stop traffic. Two years prior, Novi Sad railway station had collapsed at 11:52, killing 16 people. Serbia’s residents commemorated victims with a symbolic 16 minutes of silence.