Students Deny Candidate List Run by Pro-Government Media

A member of the “Student in Every Village” campaign said in Belgrade that the list of student candidates published by pro-government media is unofficial, and that the only genuine list will be presented on the day snap parliamentary elections are called, together with the movement’s program. The statement comes as a version of the list carrying roughly 250 names already circulates in outlets close to the authorities, a version the student movement now firmly denies.

“The only official student list that will come out will come out on the day the snap parliamentary elections are called, together with the program,” the student said, stressing that anything published before that moment should not be treated as credible. With that, the movement tried to draw a clear line between its own list, still not made public, and the rosters it says are being planted from the outside.

When does the official list come out?

The movement argues the timeline is simple: until the electoral cycle formally begins, no list of names can be considered final. No election date has been officially set, so the student calls any earlier publication of candidates premature and, at best, unverified. By this logic, an official list does not exist until the movement itself presents it, on the very day the authorities call the vote.

That approach is more than a procedural detail. By tying the release of the list to the day elections are called, the movement is trying to keep control of its own narrative and to prevent the debate from turning on names it has not confirmed. In a campaign that leans heavily on credibility and a sense of spontaneity, the question of who publishes the list, and when, becomes as political as it is technical.

The list circulating in the media

In pro-government media, meanwhile, a different picture is being pushed. A version of the roster carrying roughly 250 names has surfaced there, with a rector mentioned as one of the figures the story is built around. The student movement responds that publishing unverified lists is meant to target potential candidates and to discredit the movement before it has even faced voters.

The student stresses that this is not the first time media close to the authorities have circulated such lists. In his words, it is a recurring pattern: an unofficial list is released into the public, a controversy opens around it, and the movement is forced to react to someone else’s version of events rather than its own. In that dynamic, denials become part of daily communication rather than the exception.

For now, then, two parallel stories exist side by side. One is the movement’s official position, which says there is no list until it publishes one. The other is the media version, already trading in concrete names and figures. Until the day the vote is called, voters are left to weigh which account they find more credible.

Will you put more trust in the list the movement has yet to present, or in the roster that has already leaked to the media?