Tag Archive

They have no leader, no party chairman, and not even an official spokesperson. Since protests erupted in response to the deadly collapse of a railway station canopy in Novi Sad in November 2024, Serbia’s student movement has repeatedly been described as “leaderless”. Decisions are made in plenums, student assemblies at individual university faculties, complemented by working groups and coordination between universities. Public statements are issued collectively, and those speaking to the media regularly change.

Yet, movements rejecting charismatic leaders and personality cults are nothing new. In 2011, Occupy Wall Street similarly emphasized horizontal decision-making through general assemblies, refused to appoint leaders and mobilized around the collective identity of the “99%.” While this way of organizing succeeded in changing political discourse, the various Occupy movements that adopted consensus decision-making and decentralized autonomy struggled to translate its mobilization into enduring political institutions.

Turning protest mobilization into electoral success

The Serbian case is different. What started as a student protest movement gradually developed into a nationwide political organization, capable not only of mobilizing hundreds of thousands of people but also of contesting elections. On 25 October 2026, its Student List – Students Win defeated Aleksandar Vučić’s political camp, winning just over 52% of the vote and a projected parliamentary majority. Remarkably, the movement accomplished this without abandoning its commitment to leaderlessness. An old political saying insists that “you can’t beat somebody with nobody.” Serbia’s students have just demonstrated that this is not necessarily true.