Traders certain someone else will be Serbia's prime minister, hours after favoring Vučić

An Ipsos/CeSID election-night projection puts Serbia's Students' List well ahead of Aleksandar Vučić's United Serbia list, according to 021.rs. It gives the Students' List 52% of the vote and 138 seats, against 39.3% and 104 seats for Vučić's list. The projection draws on 49.8% of a sample from 750 polling stations. It is not a certified count.

Traders now treat it as certain that someone other than Vučić will become Serbia's next prime minister, though the question has not formally resolved. Bets on him had held in the likely range for weeks. They were still there early Sunday, then slid to a toss-up and on to unlikely, rebounded within hours, and by evening were again close to likely. Late Sunday night they dropped from a toss-up to a long shot within minutes, then settled at the floor.

The reason for that collapse is not clear. Serbia's Republic Electoral Commission began publishing preliminary returns on Sunday. A first report, based on 203 processed polling stations, showed Vučić's list at 54.69% and the Students' List at 36.04%, according to the commission and the UNA news agency. An early lead for his list points the other way from the plunge, and the link between the two is unclear. The later projection is a development in the count, not an established explanation for the swings.

RTS reported that Vučić said his side lost the election and that the Students' List won. It said he estimated 135 to 140 seats for the Students' List and about 105 for his own. The reports do not show when that statement came relative to the late move in bets.

Bets on Dejan Šoškić, a rival candidate, rose over the day, though traders still see him as unlikely. Ilija Srdanović is also seen as unlikely. Traders strongly favor the Students' List to win the election itself.

Vučić called the early vote after nearly two years of student-led protests that followed the November 2024 collapse of a railway-station canopy in Novi Sad, which killed 16 people. He resigned as president in September to seek the premiership.

An election does not itself make anyone prime minister. Under Serbia's Constitution, the president proposes a candidate after consulting the elected lists, and the National Assembly elects the government by majority vote. The government's term begins when its members take the oath. No date has been identified for that vote.

The electoral commission says it will publish results as polling-station records are processed, with counting expected to continue overnight. The official total and any challenges or corrections remain the key developments ahead.