EditSerbia’s student movement puts lustration at the heart of its election push
Another demand being assets check, President Aleksandar Vučić said the student's assets should also be checked
Students leading Serbia’s anti-government protests have placed lustration and the full enforcement of the country’s asset origin law at the centre of their political platform, as they intensify pressure on the authorities to call early parliamentary elections.
At a rally in Novi Sad, students said the two measures were essential for systemic change and for establishing responsibility for the deaths of 16 people in November 2024, when a concrete canopy collapsed at the recently renovated railway station in the city. The tragedy triggered months of mass protests across Serbia and propelled students into a leading role within the movement.
“Lustration is a mechanism that enables personal responsibility and the banning from public office of senior officials responsible for human rights violations and abuses of power,” philosophy student Antonije Stefanović told the crowd, according to Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. “Lustration is not revenge. It is a way to protect the state from the repetition of abuse.”
Lawyer Tanja Arsić described lustration as a “cleansing of society”. She said it meant removing harmful practices and injustices inherited from the previous system, allowing society to “start again and leave the bad past behind”.
In the Serbian student movement’s framework, lustration is framed not as revenge or blanket punishment, but as a “purification” process to cleanse society and institutions of corrupt practices, injustices, and remnants of the current authoritarian-leaning regime under President Aleksandar Vučić.
Alongside lustration, the students demanded that Serbia’s law on verifying the origin of assets be genuinely applied rather than remaining “a dead letter on paper”. A leaflet distributed at the protest said the aim of the law was straightforward: all holders of public office, as well as those who had accumulated wealth through ties to the state, should clearly demonstrate where their assets come from. “When there is no control, abuse is born,” the text said.
The rally also focused on academic freedom. Jelena Kleut, a lecturer at the University of Novi Sad whose promotion to full professor was rejected by the university senate, addressed the crowd. Around 1,200 academics have signed a letter supporting her, arguing that the decision amounted to political retaliation for her backing of the student protests. Participants chanted her name during the event.
“Our hope, once we send the regime into history, will turn into a demand for accountability for all perpetrators and all those involved in lawlessness, especially those who acted against the university and within it,” Kleut said. “I am not looking for a new job. Together with you, I am looking for justice.”
University management insists that the procedure was conducted in line with existing rules and the senate’s legal powers. In recent weeks, however, students and lecturers in Novi Sad have organised a series of actions in support of Kleut.
Students framed the protest as part of preparations for early elections, which have not yet been scheduled. “Victory is not an end goal. It is a set of processes that we all need to carry out together to live in a fair society without corruption, but with responsibility,” student Nadja Šolaja told the rally, announcing what she described as a new phase of the student movement.
On 29 December last year, students said nearly 400,000 citizens had supported their call for early elections, after signatures were collected in more than 100 towns and municipalities across Serbia. The signatures were not submitted as a formal request but were used to gauge public support.
Vučić said on the same day that he accepted what he called the students’ “core demand”. Lat year he floated May or December 2026 as possible election dates and did not rule out running for prime minister. In January he said that parliamentary elections could be held in October, November, or December.
Vučić now criticised calls for a lustration law, saying the idea was aimed at eliminating political opponents “they cannot defeat at the polls”. He described the demand as disappointing, while welcoming proposals to enforce the asset origin law, noting that it had been adopted on his initiative in 2020 or 2021 but insufficiently implemented by the tax authorities.
He went further by proposing that, in the event of early elections, the assets of all 250 candidates on both the student-backed list and the ruling coalition’s “people’s list” should be checked. Vučić said he could not accept claims that he was dishonest while his opponents were spared scrutiny.
The Novi Sad rally, held under the slogan “What does victory mean”, ended peacefully and drew several thousand participants. An isolated incident occurred when a participant appeared with an Albanian flag and was removed from the square by other demonstrators.
The protest was the first student-led rally in Serbia this year. Demonstrations began nationwide after the Novi Sad station tragedy, with protesters demanding criminal and political accountability. In May, students added early elections to their demands, arguing that authorities had failed to meet earlier conditions. The government maintains that documentation related to the incident has been published and legal proceedings initiated, a claim contested by parts of the academic community.
Sources: BGNES, RFE, BETA
Caption: AP video still frame from the protest, 17 January 2026
Updated: January 19, 2026 - 06:26
