Student List Launches Campaign in Novi Sad, 250 Names Await
Citizens' group Student List, Students Are Winning, founded September 9 with 14 signatories, opens its campaign today in Novi Sad, presenting part of its roughly 250 candidates for October 25.
The citizens’ group Student List, Students Are Winning was formally established on September 9 in Belgrade with 14 signatories, giving the student movement a legal form for the first time ahead of the snap parliamentary election called for October 25. The very next day, at 5 p.m., the election campaign itself kicked off outside the Serbian National Theatre in Novi Sad, where part of the candidate roster was presented, a list that, according to earlier announcements, will run to roughly 250 names.
Until now, speculation had swirled around the student list: who would lead it, and how much support it could draw. The founding of the citizens’ group and the Novi Sad rally have replaced that guesswork with concrete steps, even though the full candidate list for parliament has not yet been made public.
Who signed the list
Most of the 14 signatories of the citizens’ group are university professors and teaching assistants. Leading the group are Marija Maruna, a professor at the Faculty of Architecture in Belgrade, and Katarina Scepanovic, an English teacher at the Philological Grammar School and deputy president of the Forum of Belgrade Grammar Schools. The list of signatories also includes Stanislav Milosevic, a teaching assistant at the Department of Astronomy of the Faculty of Mathematics, Aleksandar Cupic of the Faculty of Transport and Traffic Engineering, Milica Jovanovic of the Faculty of Organizational Sciences, and Sanja Fric, an assistant professor at the Faculty of Civil Engineering.
From other professions come Goran Perisic, a worker at the Kolubara mining basin in Lazarevac, and Miroslav Andric, an oral surgeon. The academic community is further represented by Mirjana Nikolic, rector of the University of Arts and a professor at the Faculty of Dramatic Arts, Radomir Saicic of the Faculty of Chemistry, a member of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts, and Dusan Djurdjevic of the Faculty of Technical Sciences of the University of Pristina. Rounding out the group are Zeljko Hubac, a playwright at the National Theatre, and Maja Crnogorac Djuric of the Predskolski krug preschool community.
All 14 signatories will also appear on the election list itself, which, based on what the movement previously announced, should number around 250 parliamentary candidates. The full list, however, will only be published once it is submitted to the Republic Election Commission (REC), not before. Vladan Djokic, rector of the University of Belgrade and the person most often mentioned as a possible list leader, is not currently on it, though sources close to the movement leave open the possibility that this could change.
Why Novi Sad
The choice of city to open the campaign was no accident. Student Lazar Geratovic, a representative of students in blockade, explained to Nova that Novi Sad is the city where, two years ago, the collapse of a canopy at the railway station killed 16 people, and no one has been held accountable for it to this day. “This is the city where the wave of the fight for freedom and justice began,” Geratovic said, adding that what is now beginning is “the final part of our fight to win the truth and freedom.”
At the rally, organizers announced that part of the candidates and campaign figureheads would be presented, and Geratovic spelled out the sequence of steps to follow. “As soon as we submit it, the list of all candidates will be published, made publicly available,” he said, adding that candidates would spend the coming days submitting documentation and signatures, after which a decentralized signature-collection drive would begin across all of Serbia. He described the calling of the election as the end of a long wait. “I mean, 490 days since the first request to call a snap parliamentary election, we really waited a long time for it, and we finally got it. Now comes, probably, the most important period of our lives, one that will determine both our fate and the fate of all citizens of Serbia,” he concluded.
Ahead of the rally, students of the Faculty of Technical Sciences in Novi Sad posted a short message on social media: “The hour has struck, the students are winning!” The movement itself marked the founding of the citizens’ group with a blunt message of its own: “The upcoming election poses just one question: Serbia or the mafia.”
Sources do not fully agree on the date of the first rally. N1, Nova, and the 021 portal report that the event was set for today, September 10, at 5 p.m., while Naslovi.net, citing a BBC Serbian report, stated that the first campaign rally was announced for September 9.
The 10,000-signature threshold
Submitting a citizens’ group list requires 10,000 certified voter statements, while the threshold for national minority parties is lower, at 5,000. Perisic said signature collection would begin as soon as the Republic Election Commission published the necessary forms, which he expected within days. The commission itself must rule on a submitted list within 48 hours, and Srpske vesti previously reported that the opposition in this election is split across 16 lists.
The Student List is now formally joining that count, but with a status distinct from the rest of the opposition. Several parties, among them the Democratic Party, the Green-Left Front, and the Social Democratic Party of former Serbian president Boris Tadic, have said they support the students, which in practice means they will not field their own candidates but will instead give the list logistical backing. Whether that arrangement holds until October 25, and whether a place on the list will ultimately be found for rector Djokic, remain questions that only the submission of the list to the Republic Election Commission will answer.
