Student List wins Serbia's election and pledges to clean up institutions

The Student List, a candidate list that grew out of student-led protests, has won a decisive victory in Serbia's parliamentary election. After the result, the list said its focus is cleaning up institutions it describes as rotten, according to The Guardian.

Aleksandar Vučić conceded defeat to the protest movement in what was an early election, a snap vote called ahead of the normal schedule. Reuters reported that Vučić had conceded. Vučić and his Serbian Progressive Party (SNS) had governed Serbia for 14 years. Voters living abroad formed long queues at polling stations ahead of the vote, Reuters video footage showed. European officials and leaders from Balkan states congratulated the Student List on its win, Balkan Insight reported.

The list's roots lie in anti-corruption protests that followed the collapse of a canopy at the Novi Sad railway station. The collapse killed 16 people. No one has been convicted in connection with it.

The Student List has called for the dismissal of many senior law enforcement officials, including the heads of the criminal police, the paramilitary gendarmerie and an anti-terrorism unit. Candidate Svetlana Stanarević has called for the director of Serbia's internal intelligence agency to resign. The list has also called for cases linked to the railway station collapse to be reopened or expedited.

The demands go to the heart of the institutions that governed under Vučić's party for more than a decade. How those calls will be carried out, and how quickly, has not yet been set out.