Serbia's student-led election winners demand resignations of police, intelligence and judiciary chiefs
Newly elected MPs from Serbia's student-led movement, which ousted former president Aleksandar Vučić's party in Sunday's election, have called for the heads of the police, the BIA security agency and the anti-terror unit to stand down, fearing evidence could be destroyed during the weeks-long handover.
Standing in Pioneers' Park opposite the parliament in Belgrade on Thursday, newly elected MPs on the Student List demanded the immediate dismissal of all police officers who had broken the law and singled out the heads of the police, the BIA security agency and the anti-terror unit. They also called for top judicial figures to step down.
The handover of power will take weeks, and the movement fears that evidence of possible wrongdoing could be destroyed in the meantime. Only days earlier, the same park was a tent camp of Vučić loyalists; it was dismantled within hours of him conceding defeat on Sunday night, and volunteers moved in to clean it up.
The new parliamentary majority is made up largely of first-time politicians, including academics, artists, athletes and around a dozen doctors. The movement grew out of protests after the collapse of a railway station canopy in Novi Sad in November 2024 killed 16 people, and its "Student Plan" promises to "halt the plunder" and return stolen assets to the state budget.
Changes have already started at the state broadcaster RTS, whose director Manja Grčić has stepped down.