In central Belgrade, young protesters are painting over insults on city walls and replacing them with student slogans. Their work comes days after the Student List won the election, as Serbia confronts the question of whether the movement’s victory can reshape the state.
Seventeen-year-old protester Adam said the group wanted to turn the city into “a kind of gallery.” He had taken part in student blockades and almost every protest, he said, describing the struggle as difficult and saying protesters were proud to have defeated a system that had “been breathing down our necks for the last 14 years.”
Signs of change were also emerging inside public institutions. Police arrested the head of criminal police on suspicion of abuse of office. The director of public broadcaster RTS resigned after being accused of spreading pro-government propaganda.
Five days after the Student List’s election victory on Sunday, 25 October, students and older supporters gathered outside the University of Belgrade’s Faculty of Law. At 11:52, they stepped onto the road and stopped traffic for 16 minutes of silence. The gesture commemorated the 16 people killed when Novi Sad railway station collapsed two years earlier at the same time.
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