Student-led anti-corruption protests have rocked Serbia ever since 16 people were killed in the November 2024 collapse of a Novi Sad railway station, with initial calls for a transparent investigation growing into demands for early elections.
Protesters in Kraljevo did not directly address Vucic’s remarks, but said their fight would continue.
“Freedom is near,” Nemanja Karovic, a Belgrade professor who supports the movement, told the crowd from a stage in the main square. “The students are winning,” he added.
“I am a student, not an enemy of the state,” Lazar Stevanovic, a student at the Faculty of Agriculture, told the rally.
Vucic, who has dominated Serbian politics for more than a decade, has repeatedly accused protesters of being “foreign agents” seeking to overthrow the government, and has rejected calls for early elections.
“I will be president for just a few more weeks, then I will resign,” Vucic said on Saturday, without giving further details or setting a date for possible elections.
Most speeches centred on Serbia’s relation with Kosovo, its former province, which declared independence in 2008 — a move Belgrade refuses to recognise.
Students and professors from Kosovo also took part in the protest, highlighting what they described as the difficult position of Kosovo’s Serb minority and saying they were “victims of policies” in both Belgrade and Pristina.
The rally was held as temperatures topped 35 degrees, levels classed as “dangerous” by Serbia’s public health institute, with red warnings in place in parts of the Balkan country.
Water and medical aid points were set up around the protest area.
