Student movement in Serbia beats govt, big parties in polls - can this happen in M'sia?

On Oct 25, a student-led protest movement in Serbia achieved an astounding electoral feat: not only did it topple veteran ruler Aleksandar Vučić’s 14-year rule, but it also left every other major party short of the threshold needed to win seats. 

The Student List won an outright majority of 140 out of 250 seats with 52.7 percent of the vote, well ahead of the SNS list’s 104 seats and 39.2 percent, based on preliminary results, while the remaining seats were scored by minor parties.

The seismic result has prompted a question closer to home: could a similar people-powered upset happen in Malaysia?

Political observers contacted by Malaysiakini noted that some similarities can be observed between the European nation’s anti-corruption public backlash and Malaysia’s history of mass mobilisation and political change.

However, the analysts agreed that Malaysia’s electoral system and racial politics could stand in the way of a similar outcome.

The student movement was prompted by a November 2024 railway station canopy collapse in Novi Sad, Serbia’s second-largest city.

The disaster, which resulted in the deaths of 16 people, was widely blamed on shoddy workmanship linked to corruption in government procurements.

Vučić and the SNS denied the allegations, but violent crackdowns against protesters swelled the movement, with students blockading universities for over a year while holding daily marches, leading to Vučić calling for a snap election after sustained pressure from the protests.

Academic Janet Steele, who taught at Serbia’s University of Belgrade’s Faculty of Political Sciences as a visiting Fulbright professor during the protests, told Malaysiakini that it was “astonishing” to see the various people who participated, ranging from workers to elderly citizens.

“They were noisy, blowing whistles and banging on pans, but disciplined and hopeful, organised and carefully guarded by student marshals wearing fluorescent yellow jackets,” she recalled.

“The goals of the movement were initially quite focused: an end to corruption, and accountability for the violence against the students.

“Over time, and as the movement grew, its goals became both broader and more diffused: honest elections, more money for education, and independent media,” she observed.

The movement eventually found its way to the ballot box through the Student List, which did not include any of the students themselves.

Pointing out that the list was made up of professors, doctors, and civil society leaders, Steele said the composition meant no one could accuse the students of being “out for their own gain”.

Electoral system a hurdle

Sunway University political scientist Wong Chin Huat said turning such a movement into parliamentary seats could be a much tougher path in Malaysia, considering key differences in the electoral systems.

In Serbia, where the entire country acts as one voting district, voters cast ballots for a political party rather than an individual candidate in a party-list system. The 250 parliamentary seats are then divided up to match each party’s share of the national vote.

If a party wins 40 percent of the vote, it gets 40 percent of the seats, provided it clears the three percent minimum threshold.

Those seats are then filled according to a pre-set, ranked list provided by each party.

For example, if a party wins 40 seats, the top 40 candidates on its list enter Parliament.

In contrast, Wong said Malaysia’s first-past-the-post (FPTP) system poses challenges in matching candidates with constituencies.

This issue is amplified for new parties that might not have a “charismatic political leader to sweep the ground”, a seeming necessity here that the Student List consciously avoided.

He added that strategic voting could deter rational voters from backing a newcomer, while unequal constituency sizes and boundaries drawn to favour certain parties could mean a new party needs a stronger majority than 53 percent to secure a majority of seats.

In particular, Wong pointed to Muda, which he said attempted to mobilise youth voters but “flatly failed” when it contested elections without the backing of major coalitions, a hurdle he said its electoral ally Partis Sosialis Malaysia (PSM) also faces.

“That's FPTP at work. It’s smart of Bersama to now want to convert appointed state seats into CLPR (Closed List Proportional Representation) seats,” Wong said, referring to Bersama’s proposal to overhaul the composition of the Malacca state assembly.

READ MORE: 'Out with the dinosaurs': Bersama pitches proportional representation for Malacca

Race, religion the bigger obstacle

Beyond Malaysia’s electoral system, however, Wong said an even bigger obstacle is its adherence to racial and religious politics.

He highlighted that while Serbia has its own identity divide over whether to side with Russia or Europe, it has no “political project” that locks in a large segment of the electorate the way bumiputera-centric policies or Islamisation does in Malaysia.

The design, Wong said, allows nationwide movements capable of cutting across regions and population groups, as seen in 2000 when mass street protests forced Slobodan Milošević from power after more than a decade in office, following his refusal to accept defeat in a presidential election.

Expressing similar sentiments, Steele described Serbia as a “basically homogeneous society” while Malaysia is “divided by race and religion”.

“In Malaysia, it is too easy for one group to blame another, and to appeal to religious or racial solidarity.

“We have seen this happen time and time again, with the race or religion card being played to divide citizens and prevent progressive reform,” she said.

She stressed that under a political system which broadly benefits one group while “discriminating” against others, it is hard to mobilise a multi-ethnic coalition to bring about change.

A lesson for those in power

While Universiti Malaya’s Tawfik Yaakub acknowledged that Malaysia's electoral competition is strongly influenced by ethnicity, religion, regional interests, and established party structures, he argued that the historical Serbian election offers a crucial lesson for those in power.

“The recent Serbian election demonstrates that even a long-established ruling party can lose power when public dissatisfaction develops into a sustained political movement.

“The student-led movement successfully transformed public frustration over corruption, accountability, and governance into electoral participation, (while also) demonstrating that young people can become a significant political force when their demands resonate across different generations and sections of society,” he said.

Tawfik also drew similarities between the 2018 Malaysian general election, in which BN lost federal power for the first time in over six decades, and the latest Serbian election, saying both cases illustrate that political dominance does not necessarily guarantee continued public support.

“Political stability cannot depend solely on party machinery, political loyalty, or institutional advantages - it must also be sustained through public trust, accountability, and effective governance.

“Ultimately, elections are not simply about political parties winning or losing, but about maintaining public confidence in democracy,” he emphasised.

While noting that Serbia’s experience should not be interpreted as a prediction of another political transition in Malaysia, he called for stronger democratic institutions, fair electoral competition, and meaningful youth participation.

At the same time, he said political intimidation, disinformation, and the misuse of public resources must be avoided.

The broader message, he said, revolves around how public dissatisfaction has the potential to develop into organised political participation when citizens believe that existing institutions are not adequately addressing their concerns.

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