The anchor of a state television channel apologized on air for pumping out “one-sided information” for years in favor of Aleksandar Vucic, the Serbian strongman defeated in a tumultuous general election on Sunday, and promised to do better.
The editor in chief of an incendiary tabloid notorious for smearing Mr. Vucic’s critics had his offices invaded by protesters demanding that he, too, apologize. He refused and called the police.
Whether frightened into contrition or clinging to defiance, servants of Serbia’s routed political establishment, particularly in the media, are reviewing their allegiances as their triumphant opponents veer between calls for calm and demands for vengeance.
“Please, do not resort to any form of violence,” pleaded Ilija Srdanovic, the cardiologist who led the slate of victorious anti-Vucic candidates selected by student protesters for the Sunday election. “We must remain dignified until the very end,” he added, noting that while his camp had clearly won, the final official results were not out yet.
But Mr. Srdanovic was just the first candidate on the winning slate, called Student List-Students Win, not the overall leader of the newly formed political bloc, and he has no authority to dictate how its members and their supporters behave.
The Student List has diverse, sometimes contradictory views. Its candidates, nearly all political novices from academia, sports and other professions, range from pro-European liberals who want to get Serbia into the European Union and impose sanctions on Russia to Kremlin-friendly nationalists who are hostile to the European bloc.
It has no single leader, and it has not yet designated who from its ranks will become prime minister when the new Parliament convenes sometime in the next month. Thanks to the hefty majority of at least 140 seats it won in Serbia’s 250-member Parliament, the Student List will be able to appoint a government of its choice, but what shape that will take is far from clear.
Throughout nearly two years of street demonstrations, student protesters in the vanguard of the movement that has toppled Mr. Vucic deliberately avoided establishing clear leadership, fearing that doing so would allow the authorities to undermine their cause by making targeted arrests.
