Serbia’s long-standing leader Aleksandar Vučić has conceded defeat to the student-led protest movement in the country’s snap parliamentary election.

“We still do not have final results… it is clear that we have lost these elections,” the right-wing populist leader said late on Sunday.

Preliminary figures provided by Serbia’s election commission indicated a record high turnout, which commentators had suggested would favour the student movement.

Vučić had called the snap elections after two years of protests triggered by the 2024 collapse of a train station canopy in the city of Novi Sad, which killed 16 and was seen as emblematic of corruption and negligence in Serbia.