Serbia’s newly elected parliament will hold its first session on Tuesday, 17 November, the first formal step in a political transition that ended 14 years of dominance by Aleksandar Vucic’s Serbian Progressive Party.
Outgoing speaker Ana Brnabic announced the date on Sunday, 8 November, setting the constitutive sitting for 10 a.m. in Belgrade. The session will confirm the mandates of the 250 newly elected MPs, elect a speaker and deputy speakers, appoint a secretary-general, and establish parliamentary working bodies and permanent delegations to international institutions.
The Student List, officially styled “Students Are Winning”, won 140 of the 250 seats in the snap election held on 25 October, with 2,354,417 votes — about 54 per cent of valid ballots. The alliance led by former president Vucic, “Aleksandar Vucic – United Serbia”, took 103 seats on 1,731,323 votes. Parties representing national minorities share the remaining seven seats.
The final results were certified by Serbia’s Republic Electoral Commission on 5 November, after repeat voting at 53 polling stations on 1 November, and mandates were formally allocated the following day. The new assembly must be constituted within 30 days of the final results being proclaimed, by 5 December at the latest.
Once constituted, the assembly has 90 days to elect a government — until 15 February 2027 if it is constituted on 17 November. A government needs the support of at least 126 MPs; the Student List alone holds 140. Until a new speaker is chosen, the oldest member of the assembly, Professor Stojan Radenovic, will preside over the session.
The movement behind the victory grew out of two years of street protests that followed the collapse of a concrete canopy at Novi Sad railway station in November 2024, which killed 16 people. The students themselves will not take seats in parliament; instead they handpicked a slate of largely political outsiders — including a cardiologist, a former central bank governor, a basketball legend and an opera singer — to stand on their list.
Vucic resigned as president on 27 September to run as his alliance’s prime ministerial candidate, and conceded defeat within 90 minutes of polls closing. Serbia must also hold a presidential election before the end of the year. The movement has yet to name a prime minister or agree a cabinet, and questions remain over how it will govern — but with a clear majority and a sitting date set, the transition from protest to power is now under way.
Sources: Associated Press (https://www.byteseu.com/2507175/) and CRTA (https://crta.plus/updates/constitutive-session-national-assembly-17-november-2026/)
