Serbia's Student List movement called on top figures in the police, intelligence and judiciary to step down, days after its candidates won the election and ousted the party of former president Aleksandar Vučić.
Newly elected MPs on the Student List made the demand at a press conference in Pioneers' Park, opposite parliament. They called for the immediate dismissal of all police officers who had broken the law. They named the heads of the police, the BIA security agency and the anti-terror unit.
The source reports that the handover of power will take weeks. The students' movement is concerned that evidence of possible wrongdoing could be destroyed in that time.
The movement emerged from protests after a railway station canopy collapsed in Novi Sad in November 2024, killing 16 people. Its aims include bringing those responsible to justice and investigating corruption claims.
The purge has already begun at state broadcaster RTS, where director Manja Grčić has stepped down. Newly elected MP Mirjana Nikolić said Serbian citizens had the right to truthful information and that RTS had served the government's interests for years. The new MPs also want to replace Telekom Srbija head Vladimir Lučić.
Acting President Ana Brnabić, a Vučić loyalist, accused her opponents of choosing "revolutionary justice, not rule of law." She said they aim to shut down "all of the media they dislike."
Dejan Šoškić, a former central bank governor and a newly elected MP, said he wants the media scene liberated, corruption fought, institutions operating under the law, and a lustration law introduced within six months. He described lustration as banning from public office members of the Vučić government or party apparatus found to have violated citizens' rights.
Strahinja Subotić of the European Policy Centre said the purge will take time because Vučić and his party have held Serbia's main pillars of authority for so long. He said the new administration will have to "build bridges to the segments that have been operating well in the past."
The 141 successful candidates were chosen by students from universities across Serbia. Radomir Saičić, a professor of organic chemistry at the University of Belgrade, told the BBC that the new MPs will follow the movement's 1,200-page plan and work closely with the students.
The EU welcomed the result and has promised to support reforms on the rule of law, media freedom and corruption. The source notes that EU integration plays a minor role in the students' manifesto, which describes the bloc only as Serbia's "most important economic partner." Serbia has not imposed sanctions on Russia since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.