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thank you Serbia
(lemmy.nz)
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this post was submitted on 27 Oct 2026
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Notably, this election was not won by the Serbian equivalent of "blue no matter who." It was won by the equivalent of a third party.
It wasn't one of the existing opposition parties that did it.
Serbia barely had a second party, as far as I could see (from Croatia). Yeah, there was some opposition, but very few had any sincere trust in it, incomparably fewer than the number of Americans who actually like and support Democrats. The Student List tapped into this vacuum.
And European democracies are generally a bit more loose with having newcomer parties being at least somewhat viable, for better and for worse (AfD, UKIP...). The US electoral system just erases 3rd parties wholesale, it's particularly abysmal.
Btw, the Student List is not terribly left-leaning. They're trying to be "apolitical", in order to attract both the left and the right.
It's great that that worked. Was this groundswell a risk which now replaces half of a two-party system, or do they use ballots which make third-party support safe?
Serbia uses a proportional "closed list" electoral system, which essentially means that a party internally chooses its representatives, and when you go to the ballot box, you vote for a party, rather than an individual representative. and the fact that it's proportional, rather than majoritarian (first past the post/winner takes all), means that third parties are more viable. But historically those third parties have been small, ethic minority-based parties.
According to Wikipedia: "Eligible voters vote for electoral lists, on which the registered candidates are present. A maximum of 250 candidates could be present on a single electoral list. An electoral list could be only submitted by a registered political party. To submit an electoral list, at least 10,000 valid signatures must be collected, though ethnic minority parties only need to collect 5,000 signature to qualify on ballot. At least 40 percent of candidates on electoral lists must be female."
The requirements here are fairly strict, and prior to the student list, there wasn't really a traditional opposition bloc. One likely struggled to cohere in the past, because of those requirements.
The movement to get the Student List on the ballot in the first place came out of a larger, non-electoral movement of protests and strikes against corruption, which provided a basis upon which a coherent opposition party could come together, and they could overcome signature requirements and the like.
We will have to see what sort of reforms they make. I'll be following it closely
It was more of a question about this recent election. Was it first-past-the-post? Because if it is and they don't fix that, they will be incorporated into a two-party system. Those don't emerge because anyone wanted one.
They have proportional representation according to Wikipedia (emphasis mine):
So it's not really relevant to fptp systems. Where third parties are in most every case spoilers and fundamentally non viable.
I'm only aware of Britain having first past the post system in Europe.
Well the great thing about winning with a party that actually wants to change the system (if they do) is that regardless of whether it was FPTP before, it doesn't have to be in the future.
Yeeeah a lot of third parties don't seem aware that this is a thing to fix. Winning makes them even less likely to consider systemic change. It worked for them - what's the problem?
Well, if the reason it "worked for them" is because they had promised electoral reform, then they could easily lose their support by breaking that promise.
In this specific situation, the coalition is very fragile without a clear ideological direction. It's very possible that it will break apart, and so it's in their interest to enact reforms that would allow smaller parties to hold influence.
Do you have historical examples to support that claim, btw? You say "a lot of third parties" but which ones?
You're giving me a lot of "if they" for a question about "did they."
Hungary was also won by a new party (though the leader came from Fidesz), not the existing, discredited opposition.
This, tbh. If anything, the opposition lost even harder than the government.