Serbian elections: A country where students may actually take power

Among all the countries where students are protesting, Serbia could be the first where they actually take power. Because after two years of turmoil, Serbia has an election. Here's what you need to know. Students who formed the political movement last year posed the most serious challenge Aleksandar Vučić has faced in his 14 years in power. Voters are choosing between the political establishment they have known for years and the student-backed list. The list includes university professors, doctors, artists, and farmers selected by students. Its main goal is to fight corruption and transform the system. It all began here, at a newly renovated railway station in Novi Sad, a major government project built by Chinese companies. Just months after the officials cut the ribbon, a concrete canopy collapsed, killing 16 people, two of them children. People took to the streets, demanding accountability. It never came. Instead, protests spread and students took the lead they occupied universities and stayed for months teachers and professors joined them in protest and the education system froze the government's response frozen salaries and later layoffs month after month the pressure grew and so did the anger it culminated in the largest demonstration Belgrade has ever seen more than half a million people gathered demanding justice but that night something happened Some kind of a big powerful machine took off It really started from the beginning and entered the streets with all of us, in the crowd. Hunters described the same thing a sound like an approaching airplane Suspicions grew that the government had used a sonic weapon on its own citizens Officials still denied So the students became a political move ment and demanded early elections I still demand justice A year and a half later, they got them. Aleksandar Vučić, Serbia's most powerful politician, stepped down as president, but is now running for prime minister. Those are the same yellow thieves who want to go back to power. They just want to go back so they can steal and steal again. He's calling for unity, blaming students for dividing the country. country. He promises higher pensions and wages, but leaves behind a nation stalled on its path to the EU, caught between competing interests and the influence of Russia and the West. And for the first time, he faces a serious rival.