On November 1 of last year, the newly rebuilt canopy of the railway station in Novi Sad, Serbia’s second-largest city, collapsed, resulting in the deaths of 15 individuals. This tragic event was more than merely an infrastructure failure; it marked a significant turning point for the patronage state which has characterized the regime of Aleksandar Vucic.

This catastrophe has sparked the largest anti-government demonstrations in Serbia since the fall of Slobodan Milosevic in 2000, posing the most significant threat to Vucic’s 13-year authoritarian governance.

Students and ordinary citizens taking to the streets blame high-level governmental corruption for the canopy’s failure, demanding transparency and accountability from those in power.

Back in 2000, the final year of Milosevic’s governance, Transparency International’s Corruption Perception Index ranked what remained of Yugoslavia—now just Serbia and Montenegro—as the second most corrupt nation globally.

In the decade following the democratic revolution of October 5 that year, Serbia improved in these rankings, achieving a position of 72nd out of 177 countries assessed in 2013.

After Vucic’s Serbian Progressive Party, SNS, took power in 2012, and with Vucic gaining absolute authority in 2014, Serbia has experienced regression, with corruption levels reverting to those last observed during the wartime period of the 1990s. By 2023, Transparency International positioned Serbia at 104th out of 180 countries.

However, the issues extend beyond just corruption.