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Serbia’s longtime leader Aleksandar Vucic has conceded defeat to a student-led movement in the country’s snap parliamentary election, saying the opposition group is set to secure a majority of seats.
Vucic said on Sunday that, based on a sample of votes, the Student List was expected to win between 135 and 140 seats in the 250-member parliament, compared with 105 for his electoral list.
While stating that final results were not yet available, the populist leader said, “It is clear that we have lost these elections.”
His announcement was greeted with cheers, euphoria and tears at the Student List headquarters, according to the Belgrade-based FoNet news agency.
“Preliminary results show that students are convincingly leading in almost all polling stations,” Radomir Saicic, a parliamentary candidate for the Students’ List, said in a speech at the movement’s election headquarters.
“Students won, and with them also a hope that Serbia can be a country of justice, freedom and dignity,” he added. “Let this night be the beginning of a new chapter.”
Voting to determine whether Vucic’s Serbian Progressive Party (SNS), which has governed since 2012, could retain power against a movement born from nationwide anticorruption protests, ended at 8pm local time (19:00 GMT) on Sunday.
The State Election Commission said that by 6pm (17:00 GMT), voter turnout had reached 64.9 percent, the highest since the breakup of Yugoslavia in 1992. Source: Al Jazeera.