Nick covers Italy, the Vatican, Greece and the Balkans. He has reported for the paper since 2000, having previously covered Australia, New Zealand and the South Pacific 4:47pm GMT Serbia faces uncharted waters after Aleksandar Vučić, its longtime authoritarian leader, was toppled by a popular student movement on Monday.

The Student List garnered substantial support but has no clear candidate for prime minister or any other government role, plunging Serbia into uncertainty.

Jubilant Serbs described the electoral defeat of Mr Vučić – who had been in power as president or prime minister for 12 years – and his Serbian Progressive Party (SNS) as “a miracle” and “a dream come true”.

According to the independent electoral watchdog CeSID, the Student List secured 53 per cent of the vote while Mr Vučić’s populist SNS garnered almost 39 per cent, based on 96 per cent of the count. The result will give the Student List 140 of the 250 seats in the national assembly, with the SNS at 103. Minority parties will get the remaining seats.

Mr Vučić had been in power as president or prime minister for 12 years It is a seismic change for the Balkan nation, but a great deal of uncertainty lies ahead.

The Student List grew out of anger after 16 people died when a railway station canopy collapsed in 2024 in the city of Novi Sad.

Many Serbs were surprised not only by the scale of the protest movement’s victory but also by the speed with which Mr Vučić conceded defeat.

There had been fears that he might contest the election result, which could have led to clashes between his loyalists and supporters of the Student List.

Serbia now faces questions about how and when the student-led movement will form a government and who it will appoint as prime minister.

Many Serbs were surprised by the scale of the protest movement’s victory Prof Aleksandra Krstić, a political scientist at the University of Belgrade, described the results as “historic” and “a huge surprise”.

She told The Telegraph: “People celebrated long into the night. People suddenly feel free. They are seeing what freedom looks like. But there is a lot of work to be done. We don’t know who will be prime minister.”The Student List movement consists of 250 candidates. There are no designated leaders and hardly any have experience in government, although they are distinguished in other fields – Dejan Šoškić, for instance, is a former governor of the central bank.

Other candidates for the Student List include Ilija Srdanović, a professor of cardiology from the city of Novi Sad; Dejan Bodiroga, a former basketball star; Tihomir Stanić, an actor who has appeared in more than 80 films; Nikola Mikić, an opera singer; Feđa Dimović, a Belgrade lawyer and the founder of a hip hop group whose songs have long attacked corruption; and Estela Radonjić Živkov, former deputy director of the Institute for the Protection of Cultural Monuments.

Dejan Šoškić, the former governor of the National Bank of Serbia, voting at a polling station on Sunday“The biggest uncertainty is... who is going to lead the government, who will be the key ministers, and how they will operate based on the promises they made to fight corruption, to reintroduce the rule of law, but also to re-establish Serbia’s position in foreign policy,” Radivoje Grujić, a political consultant, told Reuters.

Voter turnout was close to 70 per cent, the highest since the breakup of Yugoslavia in 1992.

“The movement’s main aim is going to be the recovery of captured institutions, to bring back trust in democracy, in the judiciary, in the media, in the education system,” said Prof Krstić.

There will probably be a purging of regime officials in many sectors of society, as is taking place in Hungary after Viktor Orbán’s 16-year rule was brought to an end in elections earlier this year.

Jubilant Serbs described the electoral defeat of Mr Vučić as ‘a miracle’ “This is what the students want – the removal of former regime people is going to be one of their priorities. It won’t happen overnight. After 14 years of very strong rule, it’s going to be complicated,” Prof Krstić added.

The new government’s foreign policy agenda remains unclear. The election campaign was fought almost exclusively on domestic issues.

The new administration will also inherit a complicated geopolitical landscape. Mr Vučić was adept at maintaining close ties with Russia and courting China as a major investor while at the same time pandering to the West in the hope of Serbia being admitted to the EU.

Moscow paid tribute to Mr Vučić as a longstanding ally in the Balkans and sounded a note of warning to the student movement.

Mr Vučić pictured with Vladimir Putin. As leader he was adept at maintaining close ties with Russia Dmitry Peskov, the Kremlin spokesman, said he hoped Serbia’s new rulers realised that co-operation with Russia, which supplies cheap energy to Serbia, was in their own country’s interests.

“As for the new political force that will come to power as a result of the elections, we wish to express our hope that its actions will also be constructively directed towards the further development of relations, and that these new political forces will understand that cooperation with Russia is in Serbia’s interests, because it benefits Serbia.

“For our part, we intend to continue to do everything we can to foster the development of our relations with Belgrade. But, as you know, it takes two to tango.”