Serbia headed toward one of its largest election turnouts in recent years on Sunday as a student-led movement sought to unseat the party of veteran leader Aleksandar Vucic.
The snap vote is the culmination of nearly two years of student-led protests after the 2024 collapse of a canopy at Novi Sad railway station that killed 16 people.
The disaster has been widely blamed on corruption and triggered some of Serbia's largest protests since the fall of strongman Slobodan Milosevic in 2000.
The Students' List, a selection of candidates backed by the largely leaderless movement, now poses the biggest challenge to Vucic's right-wing populist Serbian Progressive Party (SNS), which has long dominated the country's politics.
"I voted hoping to see changes ... it cannot continue as it was during the past 14 years," Marija Spasenovic told AFP outside a Belgrade polling station, citing the need to tackle corruption and ensure the rule of law.
Eighteen electoral lists are vying for seats in the 250-member parliament, but polls suggest voters will largely choose between the SNS and the student-backed list.
Several leading opposition parties have opted not to run, urging their supporters to back the students.
Experts predicted an unusually high turnout would benefit the student movement, with early figures showing turnout was edging close to surpassing the previous poll in 2023.
By 1500 GMT, with four hours until polls close, turnout had reached around 56 per cent, according to the election watchdog, the Centre for Research, Transparency and Accountability (CRTA). The total turnout in the last parliamentary election was close to 59 per cent.
At many polling stations, long queues formed before doors opened, with thousands lining up in Belgrade and across the country.
"In addition to high voter turnout, a large number of irregularities continue to be recorded, while violent incidents outside polling stations are also becoming increasingly frequent," CRTA's election observation head Rasa Nedeljkov told media.
Isolated incidents were reported, but police did not confirm any major election-related violence.
Videos posted online showed Serbs abroad voting, from singing and dancing in the streets of Los Angeles to early-morning celebrations in a Toronto bar, where polling hours followed the Serbian time zone.
Long lines of cars also formed at the Croatian, Hungarian and Kosovo borders as the diaspora returned to vote.
For nearly two years, students have staged rallies and marched across the Balkan nation to reach voters directly and counter the SNS's media machine.
Their protests have drawn huge crowds, with a final pre-election rally in Belgrade on Thursday attracting around 150,000 people, according to an independent protest monitor.
"Today, above all, Serbia is fighting for freedom and for the return of a country that has been hijacked," Dejan Bodiroga, a candidate on the Students' List and EuroLeague Basketball president, told reporters in Belgrade.
Vucic, who has also campaigned nationwide, has repeatedly accused the student movement of plotting a foreign-funded coup.
"Serbia is voting today to decide which direction it will take -- towards the future or the past," he told reporters in Belgrade where he had joined long queues to cast his vote.
At a nearby polling booth, Vesna Ivic said things had improved under the government compared to the country's turbulent past.
"This is a period when it is really much better than it was before. We had wars and bombings, and we didn't receive salaries ... A lot has been done, a lot," the 57-year-old teacher said.
Most of the student list's 250 candidates are experts from fields including academia and the arts with little political experience.
The movement has a broad platform, centred on a pledge to fight corruption.
It evolved from demands for a transparent investigation into the Novi Sad tragedy into calls for an early election.
Against them, Vucic has tried to cultivate an image as an indispensable statesman, walking a diplomatic tightrope between the European Union and his close ally Russia.
Under mounting pressure, the 56-year-old called the vote last month, citing "major turbulence on the domestic political scene".
The right-wing populist leader ended his second presidential term to run for prime minister.
Days before the vote, Serbian civil society groups warned that conditions for "free and fair elections" were lacking.
Domestic and international observers will monitor the vote, with students mobilising large numbers of volunteers to oversee the process.
Polls close at 8:00 pm (1900 GMT).
mp-bur/al/tw
