How the downfall of Serbia's Vučiċ mirrored that of Hungary's Orbán

Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić and Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán both fell from power within a year of meeting in northern Serbia last November. Orbán was ousted in April 2023 by Péter Magyar's Tisza party, while Vučić was defeated by a student movement less than two years old in Serbia's parliamentary elections on Sunday.

Both movements received overwhelming support from tech-savvy young people who used AI tools to secure their victories. Mobilisation of voters and election monitors played a crucial role in both opposition victories.

Hungarian civic action group DE sent 70 election monitors to Serbia to work with the students' movement representatives. They identified 'infected' polling districts in advance and deployed mobile teams to monitor stations, preventing intimidation or fraud. As a result, the Tisza party in Hungary won 140 seats in the 250-seat Serbian parliament, the same number Viktor Orbán's Tisza party won in the 199-seat Hungarian parliament during the 1990s.

Both leaders, who appeared invincible, had extensive business ties and were friends with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping. They also supported Bosnian Serb separatist leader Milorad Dodik. The parallels between their fall from power are striking, as both admitted defeat at around 21:30 on the same night they were defeated.

The Serbian student movement and the Hungarian Tisza party achieved their victories by mobilising young voters and deploying election monitors. The judicial machinery in both countries could prove useful to each other in prosecuting corruption and abuse of power.