Djukanovic Calls for Tighter Rules on Student List

Vladimir Djukanovic, a lawmaker and official of the Serbian Progressive Party, has proposed that election lists should in the future be filed only by political parties and, possibly, citizen groups under stricter rules than exist today. He made the case on August 7 in an opinion piece for Ekspres, in which he also predicted that more than one list could appear in the upcoming parliamentary elections claiming to represent the students.

His reasoning centers on the origin of the movement itself. Since, as he argues, there is no way to verify who actually started the protests, anyone claiming that role could try to run under the same name.

“It could easily happen that there will be several so-called student lists in the upcoming parliamentary elections, because anyone can claim they were the first to start the protests.”

This is the first public proposal from within the ruling party to change the rules on who may file an election list. Until now, the debate over the student list had focused on its name and program, not on the legal form used to register it.

Why the registration format is the target

Djukanovic claims the Student List registered as an association rather than as a political party, and that this route allowed it to skip collecting 10,000 signatures. He compared the process to how his own party puts together its candidate list, where nominations come from district and municipal boards, meaning, in his logic, that it is clear who is accountable for whom.

Within the student movement, he further claims, dissenters fare badly.

“If you step even slightly out of line, you’re immediately pushed out and branded a ‘caci’.”

His conclusion goes beyond questions of election procedure. Behind the list, according to Djukanovic, stand not students but organizations lending them their infrastructure.

“What we are actually facing is an attempt by the non-governmental sector to seize power outright.”

He is therefore calling, in his words, to “bring order” to political organizations. In practice, that means one thing: that registering as an association should stop being a ticket into election competition.

How high the stakes are

The proposal does not land in a vacuum. A poll by the International Republican Institute, which we reported on earlier, put support for the student list at 46 percent, with respondents naming corruption as the country’s top problem. What is now being challenged is not that list’s popularity but the legal form through which that support would be converted into parliamentary seats.

The students themselves are keeping their own timeline. They have previously said the official list of candidates and the program would only be published on the day elections are called. Until then, the public has neither names nor a platform document, and Djukanovic uses exactly that gap to argue that no one can prove who legitimately leads the movement.

Opposition parties working with the student movement have repeatedly claimed the authorities are trying to break up that bloc, while the ruling coalition counters that it is a political project disguised under a student name. Djukanovic’s article is the first detailed version of that argument, and it ends in a concrete demand to change the rules.

What the change would require

Changing who is allowed to file an election list cannot be decided by a party. It requires a legislative amendment and a vote in the National Assembly, and Djukanovic’s article named no sponsor, no deadline, and no specific provisions to be tightened.

The timing also remains an open question. Elections have not yet been called, so any change to election rules would fall in the period immediately before a vote, something that has repeatedly triggered disputes in Serbia over whether the rules of the game are being changed mid-game. If the proposal takes institutional shape, the first measurable trace will be a bill moving through the Assembly, not another opinion piece.