• Serbia’s prolonged anti-government student protests challenge President Aleksandar Vučić’s legitimacy but have not yet threatened his grip on power due to loyal institutions and controlled media.
• Changing public sentiment and subtle elite resistance are forcing a shift toward securitised governance, increasing the risks and costs of maintaining control.
• Vučić’s strategy combines domestic narrative control and international hedging, showing how authoritarian resilience can outlast protest movements.

Why is Vučić’s heat level MILD?

Answer: It has been more than a year since student-led anti-government protests started, and President Vučić still retains control over Serbia’s institutions.

Aleksandar Vučić, Serbia’s president, has been in power since 2014, first as prime minister, and from 2017 onwards, as head of state, ruling the Serbian Progressive Party (SNS). Over the past year, his leadership has faced its most sustained domestic challenge: a nationwide protest movementtriggered by the collapse of a renovated train station canopy in Novi Sad on the 1st of November 2024, which killed 16 people. The station had been refurbished under a Serbia-China infrastructure partnership, linked to the Chinese Belt and Road Initiative, and the tragedy rapidly became a symbol of corruption and poor oversight. 

University students emerged as the core organisers of the protests, deliberately distancing themselves from opposition parties and framing their mobilisation as civic and non-partisan, which helped preserve moral legitimacy but limited immediate political translation. Throughout 2025, demonstrations intensified and culminated in mass rallies in Belgrade, alongside episodes of violent confrontation between protesters and police during the summer months. 

While the movement remained largely peaceful for much of the year, arrests, police raids, and crowd-control measures increased, prompting accusations of excessive force and arbitrary detentions from civil society organisations and international observers. Despite these pressures, Vučić’s government has remained in power. Although the protests have visibly eroded his legitimacy and generated unprecedented social resistance, they have not yet crystallised into a unified political alternative capable of directly challenging executive authority. The student movement created a “student party” for the upcoming elections; however, 42.1% of the population still backs Vučić’s coalition.

With parliamentary elections not due until 2027, time remains structurally on the president’s side, allowing him to wait out mobilisation while maintaining control over the levers of power.

What is changing Vučić’s heat level?

Answer: Shifts in public opinion, emerging cracks in elite support, and rising costs of coercive governance are gradually increasing pressure on Vučić.

While still manageable, Aleksandar Vučić’s ability to govern is increasingly shaped by changing public sentiment and the political costs of governing through securitisation rather than consent. Crucially, Vučić retains firm control over Serbia’s core institutions, including the security services, much of the judiciary, and the dominant media landscape, which continues to marginalise opposition narratives and frame protests as foreign-inspired “colour revolutions”. 

This framing is significant because it shifts the source of political conflict from domestic governance failures to external interference, allowing the government to delegitimise protesters as security threats rather than civic actors. By invoking the language of “regime-change operations” associated with post-Soviet upheavals, Vučić justifies securitised responses. Governance capacity has not collapsed: the state continues to function, security forces remain loyal, and the Serbian Progressive Party (Srpska Napredna Stranka-SNS) has not fractured internally.

Instead, Vučić has relied on a familiar strategy combining repression with tactical concessions, most notably accepting the resignation of Prime Minister Miloš Vučević in January 2025 to absorb public anger without conceding early elections or committing to systemic reform.

Public opinion has notably shifted in ways that constrain the government’s usual playbook. A survey, carried out between June 23 and July 5, reveals widespread dissatisfaction with the current government. More than half of those surveyed (53.5%) believe Serbia is moving in the wrong direction. This poll indicates a growing appetite for change. Vučić, who has dominated Serbian politics for twelve years and often relied on snap elections to renew his mandate, appears to be losing his grip amid rising public discontent. 

According to the poll, 42.3% of respondents outright reject the current government, with only 26.8% expressing full support. Public confidence in institutions is low, with only the church and military maintaining moderate trust levels. More than half (52.6%) believe the government failed to act responsibly following the Novi Sad tragedy.

As the protests persisted, visible cracks began to emerge within Serbia’s institutional landscape. Judges publicly expressing support for protesters signal not open rebellion, but growing discomfort with the government’s trajectory. As fear gradually fades, enforcement becomes more costly, more visible, and politically riskier, raising the reputational and legitimacy costs of repression both domestically and internationally. 

Despite these pressures, Vučić remains firmly in power and capable of implementing his core governance goals. However, the mode of governance is changing. Policy is increasingly framed through securitisation and an external threat narrative, evident in expanded police powers, intensified surveillance, military modernisation plans, and repeated warnings about regional conspiracies. This strategy enables short-term control, but carries long-term risks: further polarisation of public opinion, deeper generational alienation, and potentially reduced support in the upcoming elections. 

What is driving Vučić?

Answer: Vučić’s actions are guided by government survival, narrative control, and strategic international hedging to maintain power until the 2027 elections.

Aleksandar Vučić is driven by the convergence of personal political survival and a governance model centred on stability through control. The current protest wave has not fundamentally altered his objectives, but it has intensified the methods through which he pursues them. At its core, Vučić’s strategy remains defensive: preserving power, preventing elite fragmentation, and containing social mobilisation without conceding structural reform.

Vučić’s primary objective is to retain power until at least the scheduled 2027 elections, avoiding early elections that could expose him to electoral uncertainty. His repeated refusal to call snap parliamentary elections – despite sustained student demands – reflects a calculated assessment that time remains on his side. As long as the opposition remains fragmented and the student movement resists formal party alignment, Vučić can manage dissent through containment rather than concession, preventing protests from crystallising into an immediate threat to his power.

What does this mean for you?

Answer: Serbia’s protests highlight GenZ demands for accountability and illustrate how strongmen can manage dissent without meaningful reforms.

At first glance, Serbia’s protests may seem like a distant domestic crisis. In reality, they reflect a broader global pattern that directly affects younger generations. Vučić’s response shows how modern strongmen manage prolonged dissent without resolving its underlying causes: by securitising politics and controlling narratives rather than addressing accountability and governance failures. 

For GenZ, this story is familiar. Like climate protests in Western Europe, anti-corruption movements in Latin America, or student-led demonstrations in Hong Kong and Iran, Serbia’s protests are driven by demands for transparency. Serbian students deliberately rejected party politics, reflecting a generational distrust of institutions perceived as captured or performative rather than representative.