It’s interesting that Boris Tadić, the former president of Serbia (part of the previous regime, who lost to Vučić 14 years ago) echoes the same type of pronouncements about politicians and the commenters here on HN, and I do not mean this in a particularly laudatory sense. Just recently he was sending messages about how political experience, political vision and the like are key. How to be a political leader one needs this or that, or how Serbia requires this or that type of engagement with future technologies to remain relevant, comparing the student movement to blockchain (yes, really). This (incredibly vain and pompous) man doubtlessly has the most political experience in Serbia right now, and sits in several boards of Chinese and other multinationals, with other consulting roles, pretty much proving the bankability of his political talents. And yet that’s the person behind a series of political decisions and circumstances which inaugurated the previous regime.

Also, looking around the globe at professional politicians once also lauded for their political talent, like Macron, or Merkel, I’m really not seeing their policies paying off in spades, nor their "political vision" proving particularly beneficial to their citizenry at the moment. In all three cases, it seems, seasoned politicians made capital errors in judgement which are now causing resentment, almost unprecedented political realignments and upheaval across these nations. People are incredibly quick to judge the potential behaviour of a future political formation - yet Western democracies are by and large falling apart, as a result of career politicians’ actions, inactions, stupidity and avarice? As people speak more and more loudly on certain issues, like Palestine, these same politicians are comfortable ignoring them. Where is the scepticism for them, or the viability of this guild-like way of structuring the political sphere as the way forward? We are living the consequences of having career politicians lead, do we like it so much we cannot conceive of anything better?

Anyway, if you look into the local press in Serbia and especially enclaves like Twitter, there’s a wonderful symmetry: the EU champions are terrified the student movement has already shown "concerning" right leanings, they’re busy counting how many EU flags the students have draped themselves in while marching, and aren’t happy. The right is deeply worried about how the "globalist, NGO, pro-EU camarilla" is already deeply embedded in the student movement (they went to Brussels, after all!) and is perhaps even planting their candidates into the mix to sell out the country’s interests to the globalists. I am being slightly ironic here, but I have nothing but contempt for this thinking on both sides. Winning the election required the participation and support from both these camps’ voting blocks, which tells you how bad the situation truly was, since sworn enemies were forced to cooperate with a political unknown just for the chance to win against the existing political regime.

In a sense, only a political unknown could have won, as all pre-existing political factions, (mostly comprised of these praised seasoned politicians, many of them three decades into their careers) would not or could not muster the strength or wherewithal to work with one another. No nationalist would ever cooperate with a globalist pro-EU green party, even if it cost them their country, democracy, and those same national interests they hold sacrosanct. Likewise, no progressive citizen party saving democratic principles would ever work with what they view as backward retrograde nationalist movements threatening to plunge the country back into the type of rhetoric and milieu as existed during the wars of the nineties. Also, at some point the decades-long careers of many politicians was perfect cannon fodder for the regime’s propaganda machine, gleefully cataloguing their past sins and outright inventing them if the need arose. After a while, political experience morphs into evidence of one’s political parasitism.

It took a decentralised student movement which could not be targeted and besmirched, to engage the non-voting public and voters on both sides of the political spectrum. Part of the reason why all parties which took part in this election were swept away (except for the students and the outgoing regime) was because of failing to recognise the political moment. This election, in my view, was a single-issue election - the workings of democracy and stopping corruption and the further decay of institutions. This is what the political movement will be judged on, and what will determine its political future. The citizenry, at this juncture, is willing to table discussions on foreign policy for the sake of internal affairs and weeding out corruption. Most foreign powers and press corps, sadly, are interested primarily in the foreign policy implications of this new movement, and seem like they couldn’t care less if Serbian citizenry lives in caves, favelas, or in a thriving democracy.

Many things are still unclear, such as the exact relationship between the Parliament and Government, once formed, and the direct democracy practiced by the student movement. It is unclear how effective it will prove, or how they will select their allies and collaborators, as it’s perfectly obvious that the movement cannot simply replace the totality of public administration. Regardless, the new regime will enjoy a broad latitude and a measure of good will among the citizenry not seen in a generation. It needs to use that to good effect. If it fails to deliver, they will be ridiculed and attacked by members of both internal factions, and will more than likely splinter, and usher in a return of Vučić, who - lest we forget - is now the only opposition party in Parliament, with a sizeable number of representatives, and plenty of corrosive residuals and slush funds and media operations still at his disposal. Lest we also forget, with 700k party members, it is a powerful organisation even without the corruptive backend of the state apparatus.