How students toppled Serbia’s strongman – podcast

After two years of protests, a student-led movement has defeated Serbia’s authoritarian leader, Aleksander Vučić, at the ballot box. But can a leaderless movement govern a country? Send your comments and questions to [email protected]

Serbia’s political landscape has been upended. On Sunday, record numbers of people went to the polls and voted to end the 12-year rule of Aleksandar Vučić. And who did they back instead? A list of candidates, half of whom have PhDs, put forward by student activists whose protests have rocked the Balkan country for the past two years.

Helen Pidd speaks to the Serbian-American journalist Ana Milosavljevic, the student activist Tara Blagojević and the MP-to-be Milica Jovanović about how the Student List managed to defeat Vučić’s increasingly authoritarian regime.