Citizens Tear Down Cacilend in Pionirski Park After Vote

Citizens entered the fenced-off Pionirski Park in Belgrade on Sunday evening, October 25, and tore down the tent camp of Serbian Progressive Party supporters, known as the so-called Cacilend. It followed an address by Aleksandar Vucic, the head of the “Aleksandar Vucic, United Serbia” list, who said at around 9:30 p.m. that, according to a stratified sample, his list had lost the snap parliamentary election. “The Student List won,” Vucic said.

Sources record the time of the entry into the park differently. A Newsmax Balkans reporter wrote at 10:14 p.m. that the crowd had broken through part of the fence and begun smashing tents, while the police, as he put it, had withdrawn. Danas puts the entry at 10:18 p.m., adding that the fences and tents that had stood in the park for more than a year and a half were brought down.

What happened in the park?

An N1 reporter said citizens had taken the park back after a year and a half of the tent camp’s existence. The Kreni-promeni movement posted videos on social media showing citizens removing the metal fence. “Serbia has opened its eyes,” one of the people present said as the tents were being ripped apart, N1 reports.

At 10:40 p.m. Danas relayed a message from the crowd: “Pionirski Park has been liberated,” said the citizens who had entered. At 10:57 p.m. Newsmax Balkans reported that all the white tents in the park had been torn. According to Net.hr, citizens smashed the abandoned equipment and took SNS banners and signs down from street lamp poles. The same outlet writes that a video appeared on social media showing people dressed in black running out of the park.

The tent that burned to the ground

One tent beside the access road toward the Old Palace burned down completely. A Beta news agency reporter said several hundred people stood around it cheering, and that individuals put the fire out with fire extinguishers, which drew even louder applause.

Where were the police?

Here the sources diverge. Newsmax Balkans and N1 write that the police withdrew: N1 says Gendarmerie units had stood beside Pionirski Park all evening and pulled back after Vucic conceded. Srpskainfo, citing Beta, tells a different story: the police stood a few meters from the burning tent and did not react, and many police vehicles were left in front of the City Assembly with no officers in sight.

Earlier the picture was different. At 8:42 p.m. Danas reported that the park was full of police in full gear, and at 8:51 p.m. that the atmosphere was calm, with a large number of officers and SNS supporters. Newsmax Balkans reporter Nemanja Lukic noted at 8:59 p.m. that small groups of young men in black hoods were entering the park from time to time. N1 writes that just before the concession the park was filling with men in black, and that afterward they were gone. According to Nedeljnik and Telegram, the tents had been put up again on election day, and a Danas reporter wrote at 5:46 p.m. that old tents were being removed from the park and new ones set up.

At 8:54 p.m., students in blockade called on citizens to stay away from places with a heavier police presence:

“We call on all citizens of Belgrade not to gather near places where an increased presence of police and unidentified persons has been noticed. Safely, peacefully and with dignity to the end,” the students in blockade said.

What is known about the vehicles and the stone throwing?

News of a vehicle fire followed, with no confirmed outcome. A Vreme reporter wrote that two cars are burning in Pionirski Park, and according to FoNet a tent is burning too. Insajder, citing the first information from its reporter, says vehicles are burning, without a number, and that cannon-like bangs can be heard the whole time. Insajder’s headline also mentions firefighters at the scene. Neither of these two reports gives a time for the fire, so they cannot establish what ultimately burned.

The only time the sources give applies to a tent: Newsmax Balkans records that a fire broke out on one tent at 12:16 a.m. on October 26, and that the crowd quickly put it out without the flames spreading.

Net.hr, citing N1, writes that a group of citizens threw stones at a police column as it was leaving the park. We did not find the original of that report among the sources, so what we know about the stone throwing is only what Net.hr relays. The number of injured has not been published.

Celebration in the city center

While the park was being torn down, gatherings spread across the city. Nova says citizens had earlier gathered at London and on Terazije, and Newsmax Balkans that at 10:21 p.m. they stood at the intersection of Knez Milos and Kralj Milan streets, near the Republic Electoral Commission building. At Slavija Square, Insajder writes, citizens celebrated with songs, applause and cries of “Victory,” traffic on the roundabout was stopped, and people danced the kolo. A column set off from Republic Square through the center. No source gives an estimate of the crowd, and Telegram.hr writes only of thousands of people in Belgrade and other cities. Net.hr adds that the Student List called on citizens to celebrate in front of its headquarters and avoid provocations.

The figures that circulated that night are not final results. According to a CeSID and Ipsos projection based on 75 percent of the sample processed, the Student List won 52.4 percent of the vote and Aleksandar Vucic’s list 39.2 percent.

How Cacilend came to be

The camp was put up on March 6, 2025, ahead of the March 15 rally, between the Presidency building and the Belgrade City Assembly. According to Nedeljnik, it was presented as a space for “students who want to study,” as opposed to the students in blockade.

By the time of writing, we had found no statement from the Interior Ministry, the fire and rescue service or the prosecutor’s office about the fires, the vehicles and the stone throwing at the column, nor any reaction from the SNS to the tearing down of the camp.