When they met in northern Serbia in November last year, Serbian President Aleksandar Vuciq and Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban could hardly have imagined that within a year, the two would have left power.
Both were knocked down by popular movement. Orban initially lost in April, after the Péter Magyar-led Tisza party won the election. While last Sunday, a student movement in Serbia, created less than two years ago, won the parliamentary elections convincingly.
The Tisza Party in Hungary and the Student List in Serbia have very different structures. The first mainly relies on the personality and energy of its leader, while Serbian students insist they do not have a single leader.
However, high voter turnout HINA 79 percent in Hungary and 69 percent in Serbia ʹ was encouraged by young people capable of using technology. In both countries, they used artificial intelligence tools to analyse data, identify risks to the election process, and mobilised tens of thousands of observers, with the aim of preventing voter intimidation and manipulation by the ruling parties.
The mobilisation of voters and the presence of observers at polling stations played a key role in the opposition’s victory in both countries, Telegrafi broadcast.
Last weekend, Hungarian civic activism group DE sent 70 election observers to Serbia, where they collaborated with representatives of the student movement and visited polling stations in the northern province of Vojvodina.
During the summer, even before the election proclamation, the group had organised the worker to convey to Serbian students the experiences and methods used during the elections in Hungary.
One of the main techniques was the preliminary identification of election areas suspected of manipulation. It was about polling where previous results had shown an extremely high number of votes for the ruling party, raising doubts about voter intimidation or practices known as chain voting.
About 4: 00 p.m. on election day, we noticed groups of masked hooligans, supporters of Vuciqi, gathering near polling stations. So we sent moving teams and started filming everything, told BBC Péter Klemm, student activist from Subotica.
According to him, along with observers standing in the country, 20 to 30 volunteers at each threatened centre created an adequate presence to prevent voter intimidation and manipulation.
Orban in Hungary and Vuciq in Serbia for a long time seemed invincible. Both were powerful leaders, who had stayed 16 and 14 years in power respectively, had taken control of state institutions and established business empires with interrelated interests in both countries.
When they met for a short lunch with traditional pies in a well – known oven in the center of Subotica about a year ago, Orban chose cheese pie, while Vuchy chose cheese pie.
Later, they visited a winery where they discussed oil and other business deals, including Hungary’s plan to buy Serbian oil refinery NIS.
The two nationalist leaders had many common interests, both in politics and in business. They shared friendship with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese Xi Jinping, as well as support for Milorad Dodik, the separatist leader of Bosnian Serbs.
Meanwhile, a high-speed railway line with Chinese financing and expertise is being built between Belgrade and Budapest.
The similarities between removing the two leaders from power are obvious. Aleksandar Vuciq conceded defeat at 9:30 on Sunday, just the same hour Victor Orban had admitted defeat on 12 April. Few observers had expected any to accept the outcome peacefully.
During this week, doubts have been raised that Vuciq had twice talked with Orban on Sunday evening to ask for advice: first before accepting defeat and then, at 23:15. According to these claims, Orban had convinced his Serbian ally not to use force.
Vuciq denies that he spoke to Orban prior to his announcement of the outcome, but admits they had a conversation later. Orban, meanwhile, refused to comment on the BBC.
An hour before the closure of deployments in Serbia, masked and hooded persons were positioned in downtown Belgrade. During the election process, similar groups were photographed near many polling stations, where observers were prevented.
Another similarity is the number of seats in parliament. The Student List is expected to have 140 deputies in Serbia’s Parliament, which has 250 seats as many as the Péter Magyar Party won in the 199-seat Hungarian Parliament.
Magyar was the only European leader who called the students directly to congratulate him that evening, and perhaps the only one who had their phone number.
It is always good to hear that Tisza’s experience can serve as inspiration for other peoples, the Hungarian prime minister told the BBC.
The outcome of elections in Hungary clearly showed us that what we are doing here is right, Ilija Srdanovic, chairman of the Student List, said on the eve of the vote.
Srdanovic was one of the people with whom Péter Magyar spoke to him Sunday evening.
Currently, Orban, 63, and Vuciq, 56, could face court processes for corruption and abuse of power.
The systems of justice in both countries have similarities. Serbia’s Special Prosecutor for Organised Crime, known as JTOK, and Hungary’s young special prosecutors — known as NVVH — have similar competencies and can co-operate in this direction.
Hungarian companies close to Orban were also involved in the Novi Sad railway station construction project. The sale of the station’s shelter on November 1st 2024, linked to corruption and neglect, caused the death of 16 people and became a spark that sparked the student movement in Serbia.
There were perceptions in Europe that the longer the regimes of Orban and Vuciqi, the stronger they became, Áron Timar, founder of the Hungarian civic activism group DE, told BBC.
In fact, they were weakening. And once society found her voice and stood up, there was nothing that could stop her, he ended up. /Telegraphy/