Article published in Rizospastis, Organ of the Communist Party of Greece (KKE), on its weekend edition (31/10 - 1/11). Read below the translation:
By Kostas Papadakis
The bourgeois political parties in Greece greeted the election results in Serbia and the victory of the so-called “Student List” in last Sunday’s elections with enthusiastic praise. They spoke of a “historic result that overturned the political landscape,” making sure to draw parallels between Greece and Serbia.
As is well known, the two countries share a recent history of a major railway disaster — a history shared, of course, by other countries as well, as demonstrated by yet another deadly train collision in Spain, this time in Toledo. Serbia’s own “Tempi disaster” occurred a year and a half after the tragedy in Greece, on 1 November 2024, when the collapse of a concrete canopy at the Novi Sad railway station killed 16 people and seriously injured three others. The 60-year-old canopy had never been replaced, despite the station having undergone a €16 million renovation by two Chinese-owned corporate groups. The renovation had actually placed additional weight on the canopy through the installation of metal structures.
Here, too, safety was sacrificed on the scales of cost and profit. And just as the New Democracy government in Greece did, the government of President Aleksandar Vučić took the lead in covering up its own responsibilities, as well as the underlying causes: a policy that places profit above everything else and leads to such crimes.
The massive popular mobilizations that erupted immediately, with students playing a leading role and opposition parties lending their support, focused primarily on corruption within the Serbian state. The dominant accusation was that “funds allocated for public works end up in the pockets of politicians, through nepotism and kleptocracy.”
Although Miloš Vučević, the mayor of Novi Sad when the renovation works began and subsequently prime minister, resigned, the government of the Serbian Progressive Party (SNS) survived. It had completed a total of 14 years in power, with Aleksandar Vučić serving initially as a minister, then as prime minister and, from 2017 onwards, as the country’s president.
Early parliamentary elections were held in Serbia on Sunday, 25 October. In September, President Vučić — whose administration was marked by soaring living costs, the liberalization of dismissals, tax privileges for capitalist investors, and the commercialization of healthcare, education and other services — finally resigned following massive popular protests. He called elections, this time seeking the office of prime minister.
We must not forget, of course, that Serbia has for many years been at the center of fierce rivalries between the EU, the United States and NATO on the one hand, and China and Russia on the other. It plays an important role in the outcome of the broader struggle for control over the Balkans.
The elections were therefore inevitably shaped by competing powerful interests, as well as by an extensive effort to restructure the bourgeois political system. The principal vehicle for this restructuring was the “Student List” (hereafter SL), which emerged victorious with 52% of the vote.
In May 2025, a process began to establish a political movement that would capitalize on the prestige of the student mobilizations, which had already continued for six months, as well as on the support of student assemblies and the leaders of the protests. In effect, these bodies gave their endorsement to the movement, even though not a single current student stood as a candidate.
A list of 250 candidates was drawn up, supposedly “selected through university assemblies.” Among those “excluded” from the SL’s electoral slate were also “all serving politicians and members of parliament from both the government and the opposition.” The 250 candidates included “prominent personalities,” “technocrats” and others, ranging from well-known academics to actors, athletes and public figures.
The SL was headed by Srđanović, a pediatrician from Vojvodina and one of the earliest prominent supporters of the Novi Sad protest movement, although the campaign generally promoted the idea of “collective representation.” Among its most prominent candidates were former basketball player Dejan Bodiroga, who heads the organization responsible for running the EuroLeague basketball competition, and the well-known Serbian actors Tihomir Stanić and Dragan Jovanović.
Beyond these recognizable personalities, however, the list also included Dejan Šoškić, the former governor of Serbia’s central bank, who had resigned from that position and played a role in drafting the SL’s economic programme.
An indication of the supposedly “pro-people” opposition stance that qualified him to become the SL’s leading economic figure is that, over the years, he has repeatedly proposed reducing wages in order to lower production costs, supposedly in the interest of strengthening the competitiveness of the Serbian economy.
The other “list”
As the elections approached, Serbian business groups and sections of capital became increasingly open in their support for the SL.
A revealing example was an open letter signed by a list of 190 chief executive officers of Serbian corporations, primarily from the new technologies, software and audiovisual sectors, as well as “green” construction companies.
Linking economic growth to the rule of law and the fight against corruption, they expressed their support for the SL and its economic programme. This provided further evidence that the familiar agenda of the “rule of law” and “cleansing” — which leaves the prevailing political direction and capitalist profit untouched — can easily be absorbed by the system and used to advance its restructuring.
Another indication of the SL’s backing by powerful business interests emerged a few days before the elections, when advertising campaigns by private banks, publishing groups and food companies began appearing with messages centered on the number 3 — the SL’s position on the ballot paper.
There was a flood of advertisements featuring, for example, slogans consisting of exactly three words, or special offers involving three particular products or flavors, with promotions scheduled to expire on election day.
A large number of bourgeois political parties from across the political spectrum — liberals, social democrats, Greens, monarchists, nationalist-populists, church-affiliated parties, as well as parties representing Montenegrin minorities and Serbs from Kosovo, among others — largely ended up supporting the SL.
This took place within the framework of a broader bourgeois political strategy that, in practice, went beyond the individual parties themselves. The common platform bringing these parties together behind the SL was the demand to “bring down Vučić,” accompanied by an agenda centered on combating corruption.
At the same time, the so-called national questions — Serbia’s accession to the EU, its position towards China, the status of Kosovo and Metohija, and others — were deliberately played down and largely pushed aside during the election campaign.
“Lessons” learned…
| Ads by major Serbian companies, with number 3 prominently featured. |
Having evidently “learned lessons” from previous electoral failures, this particular bloc of bourgeois forces with a Euro-Atlantic orientation chose not to place geopolitical questions at the forefront of its campaign this time.
In this way, it managed to attract forces dissatisfied with Vučić’s policies but still attached to positions and slogans capable of drawing support away from the government’s own electoral base.
This explains why the SL’s programme was particularly “careful” on geopolitical issues.
Its positions included maintaining relations with Russia in principle, avoiding sanctions against it, and preserving the energy advantages enjoyed by Serbian industry, while simultaneously ensuring continued cooperation with the EU.
Instead of adopting the position of many pro-EU parties, which advocated Serbia’s immediate and unconditional accession to the European Union, the SL proposed holding a referendum first.
In essence, through the SL, the Serbian bourgeoisie was setting its own terms in preparation for future negotiations aimed at deepening relations with the EU and NATO and moving towards a different framework of cooperation, without necessarily predetermining formal membership.
The SL also refrained from adopting an openly stated, unified position on Serbia’s accession to NATO.
Similarly, it considers Kosovo an “inseparable part of Serbia,” another point distinguishing it from other pro-EU opposition parties that support recognition of Kosovo’s independence.
A similar tactic — which proved effective — had also been followed in Hungary, where, for example, the election programme of the country’s current president, Péter Magyar, retained several elements of Orbán’s political line.
After all, these positions do not simply reflect the particular political preferences of one party or another. They concern the strategic choices and changing priorities of each country’s bourgeoisie.
Experience has also shown that, for forces seeking to challenge an orientation towards capitalist Russia and China and instead promote a shift towards the EU, the United States and NATO, openly demanding immediate accession to the EU or NATO, or displaying complete identification with their plans, is not an effective way of winning over sections of the population.
Above all, the SL’s geopolitical agenda reflected the Serbian bourgeoisie’s preparations for simultaneous negotiations on multiple fronts with competing imperialist centers. The Vučić government had proved inadequate in this respect, particularly in its relations with the EU, the United States and NATO.
At the same time, however, the SL’s economic programme expressed more clearly its orientation towards the EU’s “green strategy,” against mining activities, Chinese investments and similar projects.
It also proposed ending subsidies to all industries considered insufficiently “green,” particularly those that had expanded significantly in Serbia in recent years by taking advantage of low labor costs. These included low-cost manufacturing industries, such as cable production and inexpensive assembly operations, as well as extractive industries.
As for the most characteristic example of conflict between sections of the Serbian bourgeoisie, with wider geopolitical implications — namely, the EU-China rivalry surrounding the continued operation of the lithium extraction project of the British-Australian mining group Rio Tinto, which is linked to Chinese interests — the SL signaled a willingness to disengage from strategically important Chinese plans.
It proposed a referendum on whether operations should be suspended in Serbia and called for “environmental inspections.” Of course, the election result does not in itself eliminate Russia’s strong ties with and influence over Serbia.
These are rooted both in the economic relations between the two capitalist countries — including Serbia’s dependence on cheap Russian natural gas and trade agreements governing exports to the Eurasian Economic Union — and in historical and cultural ties exploited by bourgeois political forces.
Particularly revealing were the statements of Russian nationalist and major businessman Konstantin Malofeev, one of the sponsors of nationalist and fascist forces in Russia and other countries. Malofeev virtually celebrated Vučić’s defeat, arguing that what had been defeated was his “double-dealing”: his attempt to keep a foot in two camps, two imperialist blocs — the Euro-Atlantic and the Eurasian.
He also claims that describing the SL as part of the “color revolutions” or as “Western agents” is false, and that this will become apparent. It therefore appears that the Russian bourgeoisie, too, has made its own calculations regarding the political camp represented by the 140 parliamentary seats secured by the SL.
The EU and the “popular victories” celebrated by Greece’s social democrats
The EU press and the institutions of the European Union greeted the Serbian election result with celebration and relief. Ursula von der Leyen and António Costa declared their “support for democratic reforms,” while analyses argued that a decisive first step had been taken towards restoring the positions of the EU and NATO in a country crucial to their geopolitical influence in the Balkans.
It should also be noted that presidential elections are scheduled to take place in Serbia by December.
Following Vučić’s resignation in order to run for prime minister, an acting president remains in office, but cannot continue in that position for more than three months.
It appears that the presidential elections will constitute the next battleground in the effort to consolidate the transition towards an even clearer geopolitical orientation in favor of the EU.
Indeed, within a broader atmosphere of optimism and geopolitical recovery that it is seeking to project, the EU presents Vučić’s defeat in Serbia, the stagnation of Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico in the recent regional elections — portraying him as the last “pro-Russian leader of an EU member state” — and Bolsonaro’s defeat in Brazil as confirmation of the success of its policies and alliances.
The celebrations by the EU and Greece’s social democrats over “the victory of student movements” or that of the supposedly “left-wing” Lula — who administers capitalism in Brazil — are completely detached from reality.
Their purpose is to trap working-class and popular forces in the logic of the lesser evil and in the geopolitical confrontation between powerful interests, so that the EU can regain ground against other imperialist centers, such as the United States, Russia and China.
In every case, such political celebrations are alien to the interests of the peoples.
They call upon working people to choose an imperialist camp, either by repackaging discredited versions of anti-people capitalist management or by marketing supposedly “modern” alternatives designed to manipulate the popular movement.
The role of the communists
Unfortunately, not only during the elections but throughout the preceding period of major popular and student mobilizations in Serbia, the intervention of the communists was conspicuous by its absence.
The New Communist Party of Yugoslavia (NKPJ), a member of the falsely named “World Anti-Imperialist Platform,” which has aligned itself with the Eurasian imperialist bloc, once again joined the electoral slate of the “Russian Party,” as it had done in the 2023 parliamentary elections.
This time, the electoral list was called “Russian Party — Serbia in BRICS.” It lost half its votes compared with the previous elections, receiving just 6,492 votes, or 0.15% of the total.
The NKPJ is also the party that, a few years ago, demanded the erection of a statue and the renaming of a street in Belgrade in honor of Xi Jinping, president of capitalist China — at a time when Chinese investments in Serbia have been characterized by violations of elementary workers’ rights.
It is abundantly clear that, under conditions of escalating rivalries between imperialist centers and intensifying conflicts within the bourgeoisie, which lead to dangerous involvement in war, the people of every country need a Communist Party more than ever. Such a party must intervene to help safeguard the class character of working-class and popular struggles, exposing the responsibility of the bourgeois state, the governments that serve the interests of the capitalist class, and their capitalist alliances.
This helps explain why, in response to essentially identical railway crimes, the mobilizations in Serbia placed at their center the impossible demand for a form of “incorruptible” capitalism, whereas in Greece, with the contribution of the Communist Party of Greece (KKE), the mobilizations raised the fundamental question: “Their profits or our lives.”
It is this line of struggle that emancipates the people, identifying and confronting the rotten exploitative system of capitalist profit and preparations for war.
It points towards an independent path as the only genuine way forward for the peoples: a system of political power and an economy serving their own interests — socialism.
* Kostas Papadakis is a member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Greece (KKE) and a Member of the European Parliament.
From In Defense of Communism via This RSS Feed.