“There is nothing inevitable about the far right,” said one former Obama administration official Sunday night as supporters of the left-wing Student List in Serbia poured into the streets of Belgrade and other cities across the Balkan country, celebrating their defeat of right-wing President Aleksandar Vučić, who has led the nation for nearly a decade and has been accused of corruption and autocratic rule.

The Student List’s victory coincided with that of Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who was also backed by a student-led movement that marched through Rio de Janeiro and other cities in recent weeks, as US President Donald Trump was accused of election interference on behalf of right-wing Sen. Flávio Bolsonaro, Lula’s opponent.

Both countries reported high voter turnout in the pivotal elections, proving, as journalist Anne Applebaum said, “that voters can alter what feels like a historical shift.”

In years of genocide
hope came from the young

In Serbia
2 yrs of youth-led protest -integrity, unity, perseverance- brought change

Today that hope is a rainbow
its far end in Brazil

May it shine
wherever wounds run deep
and the young are fighting the old

Humanity will prevail pic.twitter.com/jKA6n4EmFR

— Francesca Albanese, UN Special Rapporteur oPt (@FranceskAlbs) October 26, 2026

In Serbia, Vučić said it was “clear that we have lost the election,” as results showed his Serbian Progressive Party (SNS) had won about 105 seats while the Student List had won at least 135.

The Student List movement, officially registered by the Republic Electoral Commission as “Studentska lista—Studenti pobeđuju” (Student List—Students Win) began in November 2024 after the concrete roof of a newly renovated train station in Novi Sad collapsed, killing 16 people. Students and other Serbians blamed corruption and negligence by Vučić’s government, and soon began blockades at a majority of the country’s higher education institutions.

Rallies in the coming year drew hundreds of thousands of people. The political movement that grew out of the sustained protests called for an independent judiciary, a special prosecutor to hold public officials accountable, independent reviews of major infrastructure projects, a higher minimum wage, and better funding for education, healthcare, and agriculture.

A cardiologist and professor from Novi Sad, Ilija Srdanović, topped the list of 250 candidates that the Student List put forward ahead of the snap elections on Sunday, but the movement has said Srdanović will not automatically be its choice for prime minister. The list of candidates for Serbia’s 250-seat Parliament includes doctors, farmers, activists, athletes, and actors.

“Never again tyrants in our country,” Srdanović said after the defeat of Vučić, who was prime minister before becoming president in 2017 and has been Serbia’s central political figure since 2012, developing a reputation for threatening his critics and cracking down on press freedom.

One Student List supporter, Sara, told The Guardian in Belgrade, “It’s very strange that on the very streets where the police beat us, on the streets where we retreated countless times in the face of the gendarmerie, we are now standing here as the victors.”

Nebojsa Cosic said to Reuters: “The people have won! The people defeated a dictator! The people will lead Serbia!”

In Brazil, thousands rallied ahead of the runoff election between Lula and Bolsonaro, the son of convicted former President Jair Bolsonaro, a close Trump ally who is serving a 27-year sentence under house arrest for orchestrating a coup attempt after his election loss in 2022.

Right-wing candidates won a significant number of seats in the earlier elections, which followed Trump’s push to secure partnerships across Latin America—stoking fears that Bolsonaro could win Sunday’s runoff and pushing students to lead pro-Lula rallies and marches across the country.

At a Copacabana Beach rally in Rio on Saturday, supporters carried a yellow and green banner that read, “We are going to turn this around!”

Isabella Graze, a retired teacher who joined a 10-million member WhatsApp group aimed at mobilizing pro-Lula voters, told The Guardian that “being a soldier in Lula’s army… means fighting for Brazilian democracy. This isn’t a normal election.”

Huge respect to the organizers, activists and voters of Brazil and Serbia. These results are due to so much work and they give us so much hope. There is nothing inevitable about the far right.

— Ben Rhodes (@brhodes) October 26, 2026

The Serbian and Brazilian elections came two days before Israelis are set to vote, potentially ending the long-running term of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, an accused war criminal whose US-backed government has waged war on Gaza, killing more than 74,000 Palestinians, and pushed to violently take control of more of the occupied West Bank.

They also came just over a week before the midterm elections in the US, with Democrats pushing for congressional control to rein in Trump for the final two years of his term. The campaign has been marked by openly racist, anti-Muslim attacks by Trump and his allies on Michigan US Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed, a Republican ad claiming that Ohio Democratic gubernatorial candidate Amy Acton lied about her abusive childhood, and persistent claims by the president that the cost of living is down, contrary to all evidence.

“Feeling so much hope from the results out of Serbia and Brazil,” said Rep. Yassamin Ansari (D-Ariz.). “This took tremendous people power, organizing, and grit. Now it’s time to turn our country around, too.”

Kenneth Roth, former executive director of Human Rights Watch, said Sunday was “a good day for democracy.”

“Israel could be next on Tuesday, then the US midterms the following week,” said Roth. “The best case against the autocrats is the autocrat.”

By Hüseyin DOĞRU

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Contact us: info@strategic-culture.su

Built to fight foreign interference, Europe’s security apparatus is now turning on its own people. Muslims and critics of Israel are first in line.

On 8 October 2026, the European Parliament passed a deeply Islamophobic resolution on “Islamist entryism”. Behind the text is the hand of the European People’s Party, the conservative bloc that holds sway over EU politics. Backed by the liberals of Renew Europe and the far right, it was put to a vote and passed 381 to 167. The resolution is put forward as a way to shield European democracy from extremists, but its provisions are enough to give pause to anyone with an eye on the future of our rights and freedoms in Europe.

Take for instance the matter of “hatred of Israel”. The resolution puts this undefined notion forward as an indicator of ideological radicalisation, while also sounding the alarm on the “instrumentalisation of anti-discrimination frameworks”. One has to wonder at the implications: does this mean that a campaign against discrimination or even criticism of a state under accusation for war crimes can be subsumed under the EU’s widening net of security threats?

This resolution is more than an assault on a Muslim population already demonised in Europe; it is part of a broader, unexamined shift in the Union where dissent is viewed with suspicion. I am living with the consequences of it.

From foreign interference to domestic dissent

For years, the EU has been building a security apparatus around the alleged threats of disinformation, foreign interference and hybrid warfare.

Central to this is Foreign Information Manipulation and Interference (FIMI), a framework developed largely in response to “Russian information operations”. The EU’s diplomatic service describes FIMI as a “mostly non-illegal” pattern of behaviour that can negatively affect political processes and values.

The definition is telling in what it leaves out. Political officials, not judicial ones, are left to decide what constitutes a manipulation of European values and what does not. What becomes of political critique and journalism when their arbitrary judgments are applied?

In May 2025, the EU sanctioned me and my media company, red., under its Russia-related hybrid-threats regime. My alleged offence was my journalism, particularly my coverage of Palestine solidarity protests in Germany, which the EU claims supported Russia’s efforts to destabilise Europe. The evidence against me consists of screenshots of factual posts from red. and my personal social media accounts, most of them reporting or criticism of German domestic and foreign policy. Not one page of the evidence dossier so much as mentions Russia.

Without a criminal charge, trial or conviction, my bank accounts were frozen and I was banned from working and travelling.

Then there is the question of administrative sanctions. The EU will say due process is observed since one can take them to court, but by the time a judge is sitting in on the case the damage has been done. Livelihoods are in ruins, bank accounts frozen and lives in disarray, all while the sanctioned individual endures years of expensive and politicised legal wrangling to have restrictions lifted. It is an extraordinary power to wield; the punishment is meted out first and the chance to contest it later, with no need to prove criminality. Violate a sanction and you face prosecution and prison, even if your only offence was buying nappies for your own babies, which could be deemed to have circumvented the rules.

On 8 October, the same day Parliament voted on “Islamist entryism”, the EU Council renewed the sanctions regime I am listed under until October 2027 and reinstated the reasons for my listing. The new text still describes the protesters whose university occupation red. covered as “anti-Israel rioters”. To justify the renewal, the Council cited a Parliament report from September on hybrid threats. One institution supplies the political mood, another uses that mood to put names like mine on a list.

The enemy within

The Islamist entryism resolution takes this logic in another direction. “Entryism” refers to political groups infiltrating established institutions to influence them from within. In this case, the Parliament warns that Islamist networks are using charities, youth organisations, universities and other parts of civil society to gain influence over European politics. The idea was imported from Paris; the resolution leans on a May 2025 report by the French interior ministry, the same ministry that once governed Algeria’s Muslims as colonial subjects.

The threat is no longer just a foreign power supposedly interfering in European affairs. Now the EU is turning its attention to an enemy within.

The phrase has a history. In July 1984, Margaret Thatcher told Conservative backbenchers that Britain had fought the “enemy without” in the Falklands and now faced the “enemy within”. She meant the striking miners.

The way in which the resolution singles out “hatred of Israel” as a sign of radicalisation without defining the term is noteworthy. A couple of paragraphs on it concedes this is not a bar to “legitimate criticism” of the state, yet it offers no guidance on how the line between the two will be drawn, or by whom. Since when has hostility to a government been cause for suspecting extremism? Or are we to assume Europeans must love Israel? One might ask whose interests are really being served. The European Commission tells us the EU was Israel’s top trading partner in 2024, with €42.6 billion in goods. To call for an end to that trade or an arms embargo is not a danger to democracy, but to the business interests of Europe.

Working with other organisations, maintaining certain associations or allegedly misusing anti-discrimination campaigns can also become grounds for suspicion. Among the warning signs the resolution lists are “the recurrence of certain partnerships”, “proximity to already identified networks” and even “the production of activist reports”.¹⁷ The resolution calls for restrictions on institutional access and funding, as well as tighter checks on visas, residence permits and mobility involving people, including academics, linked to individuals designated as “hate preachers”.

Even the European Network Against Racism is cast in doubt, its funding said to raise “serious questions”. When an anti-racism body is conflated with entryism, the whole concept is made to look suspect. Under the terms of the resolution, a professor could be slapped with travel restrictions because of a tenuous association with a so-called “hate preacher”, having broken no law in the process. We have seen this sort of thing before. In 1972, Germany’s Radikalenerlass saw the domestic intelligence service vet some 3.5 million public sector applicants. Communists and others on the left were dismissed or denied their jobs as teachers, postmen or train drivers for who they were rather than any act they had committed.

The resolution also tells us which Muslims Europe is willing to tolerate. It promises support for “Muslim representatives” who defend democratic values and resist “Islamist pressure”.²² The good Muslim, in other words, is the one the state approves of.

Not being legally binding does not make the resolution any less alarming. The Parliament has rubber-stamped the idea that lawful activity is a security risk, laying the groundwork for enforceable restrictions down the line. The same rationale once used to counter foreign interference is now being turned on organisations and people here in Europe.

Repression in the name of democracy

Both the FIMI sanctions regime and the Islamist entryism resolution are justified in the name of defending democracy and protecting European values. Yet the EU is increasingly treating the exercise of those very freedoms as grounds for suspicion.

None of this is happening in a vacuum. Europe is rearming on a scale not seen since the Cold War (the Commission’s ReArm Europe plan alone aims to mobilise up to €800 billion) while standing by Israel through the destruction of Gaza. A state preparing for war needs a quiet home front. Those who object, to genocide abroad or to paying for rearmament with cuts at home, have to be recast as foreign agents or fifth columnists.

What counts as “hatred of Israel”? Who decides when fighting discrimination becomes “instrumentalising” it? When does criticism of EU foreign policy become foreign interference? And how many connections does it take before a journalist, academic or activist is branded a security threat?

These are not abstract questions for those of us already living with the consequences. The EU’s authoritarian turn exposes the limits of its professed liberal values, where freedom of expression and political participation are celebrated until they challenge the interests of capital and the states that serve it. Liberal democracies have always kept a second rulebook in the drawer, for strikers, communists and the colonised.

What began as a campaign against foreign interference is increasingly being turned against dissent at home, with Muslims and critics of Israel, already among the most marginalised and harassed people in Europe, first in the firing line. But they won’t be the last. Trade unionists, climate activists and anyone who stands in the way of the war economy should take note.

While Europe’s political establishment continues to congratulate itself on defending democracy, the machinery for silencing its opponents is being built in plain sight.

Original article:  braveneweurope.com

Serbia has achieved something that appeared improbable only months ago. Aleksandar Vučić, who dominated the country’s political institutions for more than a decade, has acknowledged electoral defeat. A movement born from student demonstrations against corruption is now preparing to take power. Yet the most consequential struggle may only be beginning.

The parliamentary election of 25 October represents more than the rejection of an increasingly centralised political leadership. It raises a fundamental question about the Serbian state: whether the institutions shaped by Vučić’s Serbian Progressive Party (SNS) can function independently of the political organisation that controlled them.

According to preliminary figures released by Serbia’s Republic Electoral Commission, the Student List secured 52.54 per cent of the vote against 39.29 per cent for Vučić’s United Serbia coalition, with 8,077 of 8,392 polling stations counted. Projections give the students approximately 140 seats in the 250-member National Assembly, enough to govern without coalition partners.

Vučić had resigned from the presidency in September, hoping to return to power as prime minister. Instead, the election deprived him of the parliamentary majority necessary to complete that manoeuvre. His concession has substantially reduced the immediate prospect of a disputed transfer of power, although the election results still require formal certification.

But losing an election and losing control of a political system are not necessarily the same thing.

The political inheritance of the 1990s

Vučić’s political career provides important context for understanding the significance of his defeat.

He entered politics through the ultranationalist Serbian Radical Party, led by Vojislav Šešelj, and served as information minister in Slobodan Milošević’s government from 1998. During that period, Serbian authorities employed restrictive media legislation against independent newspapers and broadcasters, imposing substantial financial penalties and limiting critical reporting.

After Milošević’s removal in 2000, Vučić remained politically active. His subsequent association with the Serbian Progressive Party, formed in 2008 following a split within the Radical Party, allowed him to reposition himself as a politician promising economic modernisation and European integration.

This transformation proved remarkably successful.

The SNS came to power in 2012, and Vučić subsequently served as prime minister and president. Serbia attracted foreign investment, undertook major infrastructure projects and maintained its formal ambition of joining the European Union. At the same time, political authority became increasingly concentrated around Vučić and his associates.

The distinction between Serbia under Milošević and Serbia under Vučić should not be overlooked. The former governed during the violent disintegration of Yugoslavia and pursued policies that brought international isolation. The latter operated through electoral institutions, international economic partnerships and a declared European orientation.

Nevertheless, Vučić’s political career illustrates a continuity in personnel and political methods that Serbia’s post-2000 democratic transition never entirely resolved.

The OSCE’s assessment of Serbia’s 2023 parliamentary elections documented advantages enjoyed by the governing party, political pressure on public employees, media bias and the misuse of state resources. These findings demonstrated how electoral competition could continue while the conditions under which parties competed became increasingly unequal.

The Student List has now broken that pattern at the ballot box. Whether it can prevent its reconstruction remains uncertain.

Why the students succeeded

The immediate origins of the political upheaval lie in the November 2024 collapse of a railway station canopy in Novi Sad, which killed 16 people.

The disaster became a symbol of wider concerns about public procurement, construction oversight and political accountability. Demonstrations demanding responsibility subsequently developed into a nationwide movement challenging the government’s legitimacy.

As EU Today previously examined, the protests exposed a deeper conflict between Serbian society and institutions widely perceived by demonstrators as serving political interests rather than the public.

Unlike established opposition parties, the student movement did not depend on a familiar political leader or traditional party machinery. It mobilised university communities, academics, professionals and citizens who had previously remained outside organised political activity.

Its central demand was institutional accountability rather than a comprehensive ideological programme.

That distinction was crucial. By concentrating on corruption, democratic standards and the functioning of the state, the movement attracted voters with differing views on nationalism, foreign policy and European integration.

However, the same diversity that helped it win the election could complicate governing. Its candidates must now agree on economic priorities, ministerial appointments, foreign relations and the extent of institutional reform.

A protest movement can unite around opposition to a political leader. A government must reach agreement on decisions that inevitably divide its supporters.

Russia’s influence will not disappear with Vučić

One of the most important consequences of the election concerns Serbia’s relationship with Moscow.

Throughout his presidency, Vučić cultivated the image of a leader capable of maintaining productive relations with Brussels, Moscow and Beijing simultaneously.

Serbia continued its EU accession negotiations and benefited substantially from European investment and trade. Yet Belgrade consistently refused to join the principal European sanctions against Russia following its full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

The contradiction was particularly striking because Serbia’s economic relationship with the EU vastly outweighs its trade with Russia.

The European Commission’s assessment found that the EU accounted for 58.3 per cent of Serbia’s total trade in 2024. European markets, investment and regulatory structures have therefore become fundamental to the Serbian economy.

Vučić nevertheless preserved close political links with Moscow, benefiting domestically from nationalist sentiment and Russia’s diplomatic support for Serbia’s position on Kosovo.

He also attempted to demonstrate that relations with Russia did not preclude cooperation with Ukraine.

In June 2025, Vučić travelled to Odesa for the Ukraine–Southeast Europe Summit, where he met President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and reaffirmed Serbia’s support for Ukrainian sovereignty and territorial integrity.

Serbia provided humanitarian assistance to Ukraine but declined to sign the summit’s joint declaration. Its continuing refusal to impose sanctions on Moscow remained the most substantial distinction between Serbian policy and the EU position.

Yet a Student List government would not necessarily reverse that policy.

In September, the movement explicitly declared its opposition to imposing sanctions on Russia, referring to Serbia’s historical experience with international restrictive measures.

Vučić nevertheless predicted during his concession speech that the incoming government would introduce sanctions against Moscow by March or April. He also attributed his defeat to interference by European governments and what he called the American “deep state”, supposedly opposed to President Donald Trump.

His prediction about sanctions was therefore inconsistent with the movement’s publicly stated position.

This exposes an important misconception about Serbia’s political transformation. Opposition to Vučić does not automatically translate into support for every element of EU foreign policy. Serbian public attitudes towards Russia, Kosovo and national sovereignty extend beyond the electorate traditionally associated with the SNS.

The new government may pursue closer integration with European institutions while retaining positions that Brussels considers incompatible with membership.

The economic structures behind political influence

The challenge extends beyond diplomatic relationships.

Russia’s presence in Serbia includes strategic energy interests, notably its controlling shareholding in Naftna Industrija Srbije (NIS), which operates the country’s principal oil refinery.

American sanctions against the Russian-owned company have complicated its operations, while negotiations over the proposed acquisition of the Russian stake by Hungary’s MOL Group illustrate how energy security, foreign ownership and international sanctions have become interconnected.

For an incoming administration, reducing such dependencies will require commercial negotiations, regulatory oversight and alternative energy supplies. Political declarations cannot achieve these objectives on their own.

Equally important will be the examination of public contracts and relationships between political officeholders and businesses that benefited from government decisions.

The European Commission’s 2025 Serbia report identified persistent corruption concerns, insufficient transparency in major infrastructure procurement and weaknesses in institutional accountability.

Any investigation into alleged wrongdoing under Vučić must be independent, evidence-based and subject to judicial scrutiny. Allegations of corruption do not themselves establish criminal responsibility.

A government elected to restore the rule of law would undermine its own mandate if it replaced politically selective justice with prosecutions directed by a new political majority.

The central objective must be to ensure that prosecutors, courts and oversight bodies can investigate former as well as current officials without political interference.

Brussels faces a test of its own

For the European Union, the election provides an opportunity to reconsider its approach towards Belgrade.

For years, European institutions confronted a government that professed commitment to EU membership while resisting reforms considered essential to the accession process.

In July 2026, the European Parliament adopted a resolution stressing that Serbia’s negotiations should advance only when measurable improvements are achieved in the rule of law, judicial independence, media freedom and the fight against corruption. Parliament also called for alignment with EU sanctions against Russia.

The Student List’s victory may improve the prospects for domestic institutional reform, but the disagreement over sanctions remains unresolved. Brussels cannot assume that a new Serbian government will satisfy every accession requirement simply because it defeated Vučić.

Nor should it overlook the political significance of the result.

The movement’s strongest mandate concerns the restoration of public accountability. Supporting independent institutions, transparent procurement and genuinely competitive elections would address both Serbian public demands and longstanding EU concerns.

There is also the unresolved question of Kosovo. A change of government in Belgrade does not remove the political and constitutional difficulties surrounding relations with Pristina. The new leadership will inherit negotiations that have repeatedly stalled under previous administrations.

The EU will therefore need to distinguish between areas where rapid progress is possible and disputes that require more sustained diplomacy.

The difference between victory and democratic transition

Serbia has removed one of the central figures of its post-Yugoslav political order from government. It has not yet demonstrated that the system surrounding him can be dismantled through constitutional means.

The immediate tasks are substantial: forming an effective cabinet, protecting the independence of prosecutors, scrutinising public expenditure, reforming media regulation and ensuring that state institutions no longer operate as extensions of the governing party.

A separate presidential election must also follow Vučić’s September resignation, adding another important stage to the transition.

The greatest danger is not simply that the former governing party could eventually return to office. Electoral competition must allow that possibility in any democracy.

The more consequential danger is that the political methods associated with Vučić’s administration could survive under different leadership.

Serbia’s experience after Milošević demonstrated that removing a dominant political figure does not necessarily eliminate the structures, interests and habits of government accumulated during his rule.

The student movement has now been given an opportunity to confront that unfinished transition.

Its success will ultimately be measured not by the political fate of Aleksandar Vučić, but by whether Serbia develops institutions capable of investigating misconduct, restricting the arbitrary use of power and operating independently of whichever party wins the next election.

That would represent a more fundamental transformation than the defeat of any single political leader.