ELECTIONS 26: From Dusk Till Dawn

Election day on 25 October unfolded in clear stages: the morning was marked by queues outside polling stations, the afternoon by incidents and the story of an attack on Vučić’s mother. As police and masked men gathered on the streets, tension rose on news sites and social media until the anticlimax of the evening. Pro-government media ran a confident campaign until the last minute of voting, then went live to the ruling party’s election headquarters, where the former president and candidate for prime minister announced that his list had lost. The winning list’s message, ‘Serbia is free’, reached every feed except the pro-government ones.

This final report from our monitoring of the election campaign covers election day and election night, from midnight on 25 October to 6am on 26 October. We collected 4,750 articles from 24 online news sites. On social media, we analysed 32,970 posts from TikTok, Instagram and X that the platforms’ algorithms showed in the feeds of ten simulated users across three snapshots: in the morning from 10am to 11am, in the afternoon from 4.30pm to 5.30pm and in the evening from 10pm to 11pm. Based on their leanings and the content they receive, we sort these users and their feeds into four groups: pro-government, opposition, pro-student and undecided.

Election day at a glance

The SNS camp treated the whole day, until polls closed, as a continuation of the campaign. The party’s official accounts urged people to vote for its list, and from midday pro-government media built up the story of an attack on Aleksandar Vučić’s mother. After 8pm, the same network of accounts first published results favourable to its list, then less than an hour and a half later relayed Vučić’s admission of defeat.

For student accounts, the main theme of the day was turnout. They posted turnout estimates by town, pictures of queues and reports from mobile teams on the ground, and from the afternoon also calls not to rise to provocations. Other actors mostly followed the process: observers published turnout figures and irregularities, and independent media reported from the ground.

In the feeds, the two sides barely overlapped. In pro-government feeds, content from student accounts stayed below 1% all day. In the other feeds, content from the SNS camp was barely present, and by the end of the day media had pushed it out almost entirely.

From midnight to midday

What the media wrote

Pro-government news sites spent the morning with the leaders of the ruling list at polling stations. Republika reported on Tamara and Aleksandar Vučić arriving to vote, on children coming up to the former president as he waited in the queue and on Dačić and Vučević voting with their families, which Alo summed up as ‘calm and dignified’. At the same time came the story of an ‘attack’ on the Informer building, which was condemned by the pro-government observer mission OKO, while Informer asked ‘where is CRTA now?’ From 7.50am, articles began to appear about students ‘harassing people since early morning’ and breaking the election silence. Under almost identical headlines, Informer and Pink accused Nova S of ‘shameful rampaging’.

Independent media followed the queues outside polling stations and the diaspora voting overnight, from Australia to Chicago, reporting higher turnout than at the previous election in 2023. Mašina posted footage of an incident near Stari Merkator, where people blocked a bus suspected of carrying organised voters, which the police then allowed to drive on.

The SNS camp

Throughout the morning, the party’s official accounts posted calls to vote. In these posts Vučić is ‘a man, a statesman’, alongside messages such as ‘today we choose Serbia’s future, go out and vote’ and statements of support from associations of Serbs from the region. Officials and candidates on the list posted photos of themselves voting, such as Arnaud Gouillon, director of the government’s Office for Cultural Diplomacy, who called on people to vote ‘sensibly, rationally’, or a candidate who called the day ‘a new Vidovdan’ and a choice ‘between Serbia and against Serbia’.

Anonymous pro-government accounts pushed two lines. The first was mobilisation, with messages such as ‘Let’s gooo 1’. The second was mocking the students, as in a post saying they had ‘bragged about getting up before 12’. Meanwhile, pro-government sites kept running paid ads: in the morning feeds, Nacionalni magazin showed ads featuring Vučić’s campaign promises, from a water supply system in the Moravica District to the Belgrade–Vršac motorway.

Student accounts

Student accounts went into the day with the messages ‘It’s time’ and ‘Smells like freedom’. From the morning they were already building their own information infrastructure: they published turnout by municipality based on their own sample and compared it with 2023, with the message that ‘by 10am, 625,000 more voters had turned out than in 2023. Your plus-one decides’. Mobile teams reported from the ground, such as the student blockade at the Faculty of Technical Sciences in Čačak, which ‘spotted and removed a Bulgarian train’ (a chain-voting scheme). The blockade at the Faculty of Organisational Sciences (FON) promoted the platform ‘Ucenjen si’ (‘You’re being blackmailed’), through which, they said, a hundred people had protected their vote.

Actors supporting the students

Šarović posted pictures of queues before polling stations opened in Belgrade and of Serbian citizens in Ljubljana queuing to vote for list number 3 [on the ballot], Kreni-Promeni showed the queue outside the consulate in New York, and the BRAVO movement reported that people had been ‘caught with a duplicate voter list’ in Klisa, Novi Sad. Stefan Simić called for ‘everyone out to vote’ alongside the Student List’s number.

Other parties, observers and institutions

The SSP posted ‘9otov je – circle 9, full stop’, a play on ‘gotov je’ (‘he’s finished’), while Authentic Right presented itself as ‘the only national list’. The Republic Electoral Commission (RIK) said polling stations had opened on time, with a record number of observers. CRTA reported that 19.8% of voters had voted by 10am, twice as many as in 2023, CeSID that it had recorded more than 70 irregularities in the first two hours, and the OSCE mission that high turnout was a good sign but that not all ODIHR recommendations had been implemented.

What was in the feeds

Pro-government feeds. In the morning snapshot, only a third of posts in these feeds were from 25 October. The rest was content from previous days, including campaign messages and ads. The most prominent accounts were Informer, sns_srbija, Republika and Novosti. Anonymous political accounts made up almost a fifth of the content, media around 15% and ads around 8%.

Opposition feeds. Media led, mainly N1, Insajder and Radio 021, along with Šarović’s posts of queues and the page Novo lice. Activist accounts made up around 8% of the content and media around 15%.

Pro-student feeds. This was the only group of feeds in which more than half of the morning content had been posted the same day. Activist and student accounts made up around 15%, alongside N1 and Mašina, and queues, the diaspora and turnout by town dominated.

Undecided feeds. Mašina, Blic and Bez cenzure led. The video of the incident near Stari Merkator was one of the most visible posts of the morning, along with Šarović’s posts from the diaspora.

From midday to the close of polls

What the media wrote

Shortly after 12 noon, pro-government news sites carried an SNS statement saying that Aleksandar Vučić’s mother had been attacked near Kalenić market. By 1pm, 25 articles had been published on the subject, and by the end of the day 58, almost all on pro-government sites and almost all naming ‘blockaders’ as the attackers. Alo wrote that they ‘would kill like in October 1944’, while Novosti, Informer, Kurir and Pink ran the same story under almost the same headline: ‘The face of street terror against an 82-year-old woman’. Eyewitness accounts followed, along with sociologist Vuletić’s view that this was ‘a message to older citizens’ and an article on how the attack had ‘echoed around the world’. This is the fourth week in a row in which an attack on a woman has been at the centre of pro-government messaging.

For the rest of the afternoon, the same network built a picture of violence and fraud on the other side. Students were ‘harassing citizens and attacking the police’, Informer had allegedly been threatened that it would ‘go sky-high tonight’, and Alo and Pink, under the same headline, claimed that ‘they’re already lying about the results’. Shortly before polls closed, Aleksandar Jerković of the OKO mission told parents that CRTA had ‘talked to children and young people aged 16 to 22’.

Independent media covered this part of the day through observers’ findings: from CeSID’s more than 120 irregularities by 11am and CRTA’s findings of pressure at 29% of polling stations to individual cases in Veternik and Zemun. Danas reported on new tents in Pionirski Park and buses carrying police in central Belgrade.

The SNS camp

Until voting ended, the party’s official accounts kept up the pace of the campaign, with several posts per hour and messages such as ‘Six hours to go. Hurry up and vote’, ‘Stand by your family’ and ‘Serbia will get a proper steward’. On X, Ana Brnabić wrote that ‘there is no one more stupid than the admiral’. Vučić answered a journalist with a question: ‘And what will you do when we win tonight?’

Anonymous pro-government accounts spread the story of the attack on Angelina Vučić and retold other incidents as attacks by ‘blockader thugs’, claiming that videos had been deliberately cut. Three minutes before polls closed, one of these accounts posted an alleged ‘blockaders’ exit poll’ showing United Serbia ahead with 49%.

Student accounts

The tone of student accounts was one of endurance: ‘We’ve held out for two years, we can hold out a little longer’. Tracking turnout became the main genre. The Academic Plenum posted hourly updates with the message ‘heading for a record’, Students in Blockade posted their own turnout estimate based on the list’s representative sample, and IT Blockade reported that by 4pm, 840,000 more voters had turned out than in 2023, calling on people to bring food and drink to neighbours queuing outside polling stations.

Actors supporting the students

Savo Manojlović said there was ‘total panic and collapse in the SNS’ and warned people not to rise to provocations in the second half of the day. Kreni-Promeni reported that its observer had spotted city buses carrying voters near Sava Centar. The site Novo lice posted an unverified claim that ‘Tamara Vučić voted for the students’, and Šarović reported a ‘kilometre-long queue in Vienna’.

Other parties, observers and institutions

The SSP posted that the Gendarmerie was on its way to Belgrade. At 4.30pm, CRTA held its second press conference, on the quality of the electoral process, and announced that 56.4% of voters had voted by 4pm. According to Kurir, the prosecutor’s office said there was no evidence of the vote-buying reported at two locations.

What reached the feeds

Pro-government feeds. The sns_srbija account became by far the most prominent, ahead of Kurir, Tanjug and Informer. The share of politicians and parties rose to around 8%, while anonymous political accounts still made up a fifth of the content. The story of Angelina Vučić came through the party, pro-government media and anonymous accounts all at once.

Opposition feeds. The share of media rose to around 19%, and Insajder and N1 became the most prominent accounts. Live coverage, observers’ statements and SSP posts led.

Pro-student feeds. These were still driven by activist accounts, at just over 15%, with hourly turnout updates and reports from mobile teams as the main topics.

Undecided feeds. Mašina and Insajder led with footage of voting in the diaspora. Manojlović’s warning about provocations also appeared, as did a Nova report from Vršac about people with parallel voter lists.

The most widely shared images of the afternoon were Student List graphics showing turnout by municipality, calculated from its own sample. The first of them, with the message ‘We’ve only just begun’, was posted by students from Voždovac. Pro-student feeds saw them most, but they also reached undecided and opposition feeds.

From the close of polls to the morning

What the media wrote

In the first hour after polls closed, pro-government news sites carried statements from officials expecting victory. Vučević said he expected the ‘Aleksandar Vučić – United Serbia’ list to form the new government, and Brnabić said she expected everyone to accept the results, whoever won. Alo published RIK results from 203 counted polling stations, showing United Serbia ahead with 54%.

At around 9.30pm, speaking from SNS headquarters, Vučić said it was clear that his list had lost, that the Student List would have between 135 and 140 seats and that ‘Nataša Kandić’s politics has won’. From then on, pro-government news sites carried the admission of defeat, along with the message ‘nobody is running away anywhere’. Republika posted a video of Danilo Vučić singing ‘Ruzmarin’, asserting that the whole SNS was ‘saying goodbye with a song’.

Independent media followed CRTA’s estimate of 51.47% of the vote for the Student List and the celebrations in the streets. Nova reported that representatives of the channel’s new owners had cut off the 8.30pm news and switched the programme to N1 before the newsroom had finished the broadcast. At 11.30pm, Ipsos and CeSID published a projection of 52.4% for the Student List and 39.2% for United Serbia.

The SNS camp

After 8pm, the party’s official accounts went almost silent. During the day they had posted several times an hour, but from 8pm until the morning our data shows only four posts, including the broadcast of Vučić’s concession at 10.07pm. Two posts went out from Vučić’s personal account after 11.30pm. In the first hour, pro-government pages and anonymous accounts did the opposite. Nacionalni magazin cited the betting site Polymarket, where Vučić’s list was ahead, nsinfo.rs posted ‘Batrovci – victory’ and ‘Bačka Palanka – victory’, noting ‘for some polling stations’, and anonymous accounts wrote that ‘the first blockader ringleaders are leaving Serbia’. After the concession, the same media and accounts network switched to relaying Vučić’s statement.

Student accounts

Before the first projections of the results, Students in Blockade said some polling stations were still open and urged those still in the queue to vote, while also asking people in Belgrade not to gather where there was a heavy police presence. At the list’s headquarters, Dejan Bodiroga urged people to stand by the list’s polling board members. After the concession came the messages ‘The students have won’ and ‘Welcome to free Serbia’. Speaking for the list, Radomir Saičić thanked ‘everyone for the sacrifices they have made’ and called on people to avoid confrontations.

Actors supporting the students

Kreni-Promeni posted ‘Ćacilend has fallen!’, Savo Manojlović ‘We had a dream. And that dream has come true’, and Stefan Simić congratulated people in Belgrade with the message ‘a lot of work lies ahead’.

Other parties, observers and institutions

Authentic Right congratulated the Student List and announced a ‘fight for politics’, the SSP posted ‘record turnout, he’s finished’, and congratulations to the Student List also came from the region, from Dodik to Péter Magyar. CRTA published preliminary data and announced its assessment of election day for 1pm the next day, and CeSID published a seat projection based on 56% of its sample.

What reached the feeds

In the evening snapshot, between 10pm and 11pm, the share of media rose in all groups of feeds, reaching 17–20% of content.

Pro-government feeds. The admission of defeat came through Republika, Nistv, Informer and Kurir. The sns_srbija account was still the most prominent, but now relaying the concession. The share of politicians and parties fell to 6%.

Opposition feeds. Insajder, N1 and Nova led, with celebrations in Republic Square and the Students in Blockade post declaring that ‘Serbia is free’. The share of anonymous political accounts also rose, to around 15%.

Pro-student feeds. Here, media overtook activist accounts for the first time, led by footage of celebrations at the list’s headquarters and in the streets.

Undecided feeds. Nova, N1 and Blic led, and among the most visible posts were the interruption of Nova TV’s programme and Saičić’s address.

Tone towards actors throughout the day

Tone towards actors is calculated as the average score the analysis gives each mention, on a scale from -1 to +1, or -100% to +100%. The biggest turnaround of the day came in the tone towards the Student List. During the day, pro-government news sites wrote about it in strongly negative terms, with an average tone of -0.54 (-54%), but in the evening, after the concession, they switched to a neutral tone of +0.01 (+1%). On other news sites, the tone towards the list fell to -0.27 (-27%) during the day, amid reporting on incidents, and rose to +0.51 (+51%) in the evening. The same shift can be seen in pro-government feeds, where the tone towards the list went from -0.40 (-40%) in the afternoon to -0.14 (-14%) in the evening.

In pro-government feeds, Vučić was portrayed positively all day, although the tone fell from +0.33 (+33%) in the morning to +0.19 (+19%) in the evening, while in the other three groups it held steady at around -0.30 (-30%). Outside the pro-government circle, the tone towards the SNS and its list softened during the day, from around -0.60 (-60%) in the morning to around -0.40 (-40%) in the evening. In pro-government feeds it stayed close to zero all day and turned slightly negative for the first time in the evening. Outside the pro-government circle, the students were portrayed in strongly positive terms all day, between +0.50 (+50%) and +0.65 (+65%), while in pro-government feeds they were neutral from the afternoon onwards.

Feeds throughout the day

The share of media grew during the day in all four groups of feeds, most of all in the pro-student group. In pro-government feeds, anonymous political accounts held around a fifth of the content all day, while in pro-student and undecided feeds activist accounts played that role.

About the 2026 election monitoring

Our monitoring of the digital space during the 2026 elections tracks online media coverage, the election campaign on social media, and violations of digital rights and freedoms.

We monitor content from online media in Serbia and the feeds of ten simulated users on TikTok, Instagram and X. On election day, the feeds were captured three times. The evening snapshot ended at around 11pm, so the findings on feeds do not cover the late night. Feeds also include content published before the snapshot was taken, including content from previous days.

Note on the use of AI tools: This report was produced with the help of an AI chatbot for data processing and copy-editing. The authors and editors take full responsibility for the research, analysis, findings and conclusions of this report.