Seven months after the fatal collapse of a concrete canopy roof at Novi Sad’s main railway station – an accident that claimed 16 lives and ignited a nationwide protest wave – Serbia’s student-led movement is showing signs of fatigue. Protests on June 1, held in over 30 cities and towns across the country, marked a symbolic anniversary but revealed a movement struggling to sustain momentum.
Student-led demonstrations, once drawing hundreds of thousands to the streets of Belgrade and Novi Sad, have ebbed in recent weeks. According to Deputy Prime Minister and Interior Minister Ivica Dacic, between 25,000 and 30,000 people took part in the latest coordinated actions – a stark contrast to the early months of 2025, when anti-government rallies became a weekend ritual across Serbia’s towns and cities.
The demonstrations, originally sparked by the Novi Sad tragedy, quickly expanded into a broader indictment of President Aleksandar Vucic’s administration. Protesters pointed to endemic corruption, poor infrastructure and what they described as a hollowing out of public institutions under the Serbian Progressive Party (SNS), which has dominated Serbian politics for over a decade.
While the protests achieved early gains – including the resignation of then-prime minister Milos Vucevic in January – momentum has waned, and the regime has regained its footing. Vucic’s appointment of Djuro Macut, a 61-year-old medical professor with no political experience, as prime minister in April was widely interpreted as a calculated gesture: a bid to defuse public anger without enacting significant change.
The cabinet reshuffle promised by Vucic proved largely superficial. Of the 31 ministers in Macut’s new government, only 10 are new faces, several closely tied to Vucic or affiliated with his recently launched political vehicle, the Movement for People and State. Key ministries – finance, defence, foreign affairs and the interior – remain under long-standing SNS loyalists.
The appointment of Macut signalled the government’s preference for controlled continuity rather than meaningful reform. By retaining most of the old cabinet and dismissing calls for a transitional government, Vucic was betting that time and minor cosmetic changes were sufficient to weather the crisis. That stance appears to be paying off.
Vucic has long operated on the belief that protest movements eventually burn out. Years of sporadic protests, from protests against lithium mining in 2021 to mass demonstrations in the wake of two mass shootings in 2023, have taught the government that it can withstand popular unrest. Indeed, as long as the protesters lack a credible leader or coherent political programme, the regime can afford to wait.
The current opposition landscape remains fragmented and largely reactive. While the protests have created a groundswell of civic engagement, especially among younger Serbians (who have nominated a university rector to lead their future electoral list), there is little indication that a unified political alternative to Vucic’s SNS has taken shape.
Early elections now seem increasingly unlikely. In a televised appearance following the June 1 protests, Dacic dismissed calls for early elections, asserting that “there are no political reasons” for such a move and warning against “introducing instability”. Vucic echoed this stance days earlier, linking any future elections to the timeline of Expo 2027 preparations, effectively shelving protester demands for snap polls.
Ultimately, the question has always been whether Serbia’s civic unrest will catalyse a new political era or become another cycle of frustration and missed opportunities. This depends on whether a new political force emerges that is capable of mobilising widespread public dissatisfaction into a coherent challenge to the ruling SNS. Absent that, Vucic’s gamble on protest fatigue may prove shrewd – and successful.
