In an interview with the European Center for Populism Studies (ECPS), Andrej Ševo, student movement activist and researcher at the University of Belgrade’s Institute for Philosophy and Social Theory, examines Serbia’s historic student-led democratic breakthrough following the October 25 elections. Drawing on firsthand experience and scholarly research, Ševo explains how leaderless organization, participatory decision-making, and “Gen Z creativity” challenged Aleksandar Vučić’s personalized authoritarian rule. Arguing that “the students made democracy seem cool again,” he explores the movement’s populist dimensions, unprecedented civic mobilization, and emerging interethnic solidarity. Yet he warns that transforming electoral victory into durable democracy requires institutional innovation, judicial accountability, and lustration to prevent the return of entrenched authoritarian networks and another unfinished democratic transition.
Interview by Selcuk Gultasli*
Serbia’s October 25 elections marked a historic political turning point, with the student-backed list securing 140 parliamentary seats and ending Aleksandar Vučić’s longstanding political dominance. Emerging from protests following the November 2024 Novi Sad railway station tragedy, the movement transformed demands for accountability into a nationwide challenge to corruption, institutional capture, and personalized authoritarian rule. Yet electoral victory raises fundamental questions about democratic consolidation, transitional justice, and the resilience of entrenched authoritarian networks.
In an in-depth interview with the European Center for Populism Studies (ECPS), Andrej Ševo, a student movement activist, researcher at the Institute for Philosophy and Social Theory at the University of Belgrade, and PhD candidate at the Faculty of Political Sciences, examines this extraordinary transformation. Combining scholarly analysis with firsthand experience as an activist, election observer, and campaign organizer, Ševo explores how decentralized civic resistance evolved into a powerful electoral force.
At the heart of his analysis is the movement’s democratic innovation. Unlike conventional opposition parties, the students relied on plenums, horizontal decision-making, and rotating representation. According to Ševo, the government struggled to confront this unprecedented organizational model because “it did not know whom to attack.” By rejecting personalized leadership, the movement challenged the authoritarian, leader-centered logic of Serbian politics.
Equally important was what Ševo describes as the movement’s “Gen Z creativity.” Memes, humorous videos, songs, and innovative digital communication undermined the government’s established propaganda strategies. As he observes, “We were angry and disappointed, but we were also full of hope, creativity, and original ideas.” This cultural transformation accompanied a deeper democratic awakening: “The students made democracy seem cool again.” Ševo argues that younger generations increasingly embraced democratic participation over authoritarian leadership, while the movement’s deliberative practices helped overcome its own populist tendencies.
Yet the transition from protest to government presents an unprecedented institutional dilemma. Ševo acknowledges that the movement must develop new organizational arrangements without reproducing the hierarchical structures it opposed. “We simply have to try to create a system that has never existed before,” he explains, emphasizing the absence of historical precedents.
Looking ahead, Ševo warns that electoral defeat alone cannot dismantle entrenched authoritarian networks. Drawing on Serbia’s unfinished democratic transition after October 2000, he advocates “thorough criminal prosecutions” and “lustration” to prevent former regime figures implicated in abuses from returning to political power. Without sustained institutional transformation, he cautions, Serbia risks “another great disappointment.”
In sum, the interview examines whether Serbia’s democratic awakening can translate electoral victory, civic solidarity, and participatory innovation into durable democratic institutions.
