In a 72-second video posted on social media, two recently ousted political leaders stand side by side. Serbia's Aleksandar Vucic and Hungary's Viktor Orban were able to compare notes on their recent election defeats -- and also offer a touch of defiance.
"We'll be back!" says Vucic, ending the video as the two men smile into the camera.
But even as Vucic considers his next moves, some opposition figures and political analysts are discussing whether the venue for his next battle will move from the court of public opinion to a court of law.
After losing parliamentary elections on October 25, Vucic is now out of power for the first time in over a decade, having served as Serbia's prime minister and then president from 2014. Orban was Hungarian prime minister from 2010 until his electoral defeat in April this year.
Vucic posted the video on his X feed on October 31, and in a video the following day he spoke again about his future.
"People are saying that I'm planning my return to power. I know that this is impossible in the short term," he said before adding in an apparent reference to the victorious Student List candidates: "I plan to defeat them, and we will defeat them."
Like Orban, Vucic remains the key figure in his political party, the Serbian Progressive Party (SNS). Since the election, he has said he will revamp its leadership for a period in opposition.
"Vucic's behavior is interesting. He is now acting bravely, trying to encourage his people and prevent his structure from collapsing like a house of cards," Dusan Spasojevic, a politics professor at Belgrade University, told RFE/RL's Balkan Service.
"A lot will depend on the next few days or weeks, on what happens in the interregnum between the old and new government."
Student List won 140 seats out of 250 in the Serbian parliament but, without a clear leadership structure, may take some time to form a new government. Nevertheless, its lead candidate, cardiologist Ilija Srdanovic, told RFE/RL after the vote that Vucic had "passed into political history."
Corruption Battle
Student List focused much of its election platform on fighting corruption and strengthening independent institutions. It grew from protests following a fatal railway station collapse in Novi Sad in November 2024, which the students alleged was caused by shoddy work they claimed could be traced back to government corruption.
Last year, corruption allegations also led to the collapse of a $500 million hotel construction project in Belgrade linked to US President Donald Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner, though Kushner himself was not accused of wrongdoing.
In the days since the election, calls for high-level resignations and a cleanup of institutions have grown. Two senior police chiefs were arrested on November 1, although the prosecutor's office said this was not connected to the election results.
In an interview with Croatian public broadcaster HRT on October 27, Student List representative Jovo Bakic spoke of Vucic's "criminal activity" and demanded that "all the connections that the former president had with organized crime must be thoroughly investigated."
Spasojevic told RFE/RL that he thought Vucic's subordinates would be "the first to be hit" by legal proceedings but that there was "enough evidence" that Vucic "rushed the work" at the Novi Sad railway station, a flagship government project with Chinese investment, for him to face trial.
"I think we will see a process during which Vucic…will use all the benefits of democracy and human rights and all possible shortcomings of the legal system in Serbia, but I hope that there will be the strength to see things through to the end," he said.
Dragan Popovic, head of Policy Center, a Belgrade think tank, said it was hard to imagine prosecutors not going after Vucic as head of an "autocratic pyramid" in Serbia.
"The second question is what they will be able to find enough evidence for, what they will be able to charge him with. That will probably be less than what the citizens expect," Popovic told RFE/RL.
"It will be a very complicated court case that will take a very long time…. Justice is always slow," he added.
