00:00A political earthquake in Serbia, and potentially the end of an era.
00:04After years of protests, mounting anger over corruption and growing opposition to President Aleksandar Vucic,
00:11last Sunday's parliamentary elections have delivered a stunning upset, with the student-led opposition emerging victorious.
00:18But bringing down an entrenched political establishment is one thing, governing a deeply divided country is quite another.
00:26So, is Serbia finally turning a page?
00:30Joining me now is Marco Prelek, Senior Western Balkans Analyst with the International Crisis Group.
00:35Good morning, and thanks for being with us.
00:38Good morning, it's a pleasure to be here.
00:40So, the student movement united people from very different political backgrounds.
00:45Now that their common enemy is gone, what is holding them together?
00:51That really remains to be seen.
00:53I mean, I think the most important thing to keep in mind about the student movement is that it is
00:59not a political party in any sense.
01:02This is really a totally unprecedented thing.
01:05The people that won, none of them are professional politicians.
01:10That was one of the criteria for being listed on the student movement's campaign list.
01:17There's no single leader.
01:20There's no charismatic figure.
01:21They really won the elections purely on the strength of their promise to turn the page after 14 years of
01:29the government of President Vucic.
01:32Serbians voted for change, obviously, particularly an end to corruption.
01:37How quickly can the new leadership deliver, and what happens if it fails?
01:42I think this will take a long time.
01:44I mean, there's a lot, you know, it is 14 years of an entrenched system to, first of all, understand
01:50and investigate, and then dismantle and replace with something else.
01:55I think there's, I think it's maybe premature to start worrying about what happens if they fail.
02:02They haven't even taken office yet.
02:03I think it's also likely that we overstate the extent to which the society is divided.
02:11A lot of people clung to the President Vucic's party because of the patronage system.
02:19So as that is dismantled, quite a few of them will fall away, leaving a smaller ideologically committed core, as
02:26happened with other parties in similar positions in the past.
02:30Brussels has welcomed the result, but is the EU celebrating too soon?
02:33I mean, do we actually know whether Serbia's new leaders want to bring the country closer to Europe?
02:40Well, they've said they do.
02:41They have been somewhat ambivalent about whether they mean that to mean eventual membership in the European Union,
02:49something which is really under a question mark for a variety of reasons.
02:55But they clearly do seek better relations with the member states of the European Union and with the EU itself,
03:02and constructive relations with their neighbours, which is also very important.
03:06Thanks for coming to.
03:06I'll see you next week.
03:07Bye.
03:09Bye.
