Belgrade – “Three is a magic number,” goes an old educational song. “The past and the present and the future” seem to echo across Belgrade, where the Student List’s 3 can be seen pretty much everywhere, becoming the defining electoral symbol on this crucial election day.
On walls, lampposts, theatre posters, road signs and pavements. On benches, café tables and bus shelters. On billboards and other parties’ campaign posters, on Aleksandar Vučić‘s face, and on public telephone boxes.
It is impossible to walk through Belgrade without noticing how the number of the ‘Student List – Students Are Winning’ on the ballot paper has come to dominate the public space. It is yet another sign of the student movement’s pervasive reach and its ability to reach citizens from all walks of life.
Unlike the other lists – in particular, ‘Aleksandar Vučić – United Serbia’ number 1, and ‘Ivica Dačić – Factor of Stability!’ number 2 – which have opted for a conventional, expensive campaign centred on billboards in the most prominent and strategic locations, the students have taken a different approach.
Although they, too, have put up some large posters, in the weeks leading up to the 25 October vote they stepped up their efforts to plaster the city with their electoral symbol. It is instantly recognisable and easy to remember, while also carrying multiple layers of meaning. In Serbia, after all, the number three – especially when formed by holding up the thumb, index and middle fingers – is no ordinary number.
The three-finger salute – pozdrav sa tri prsta in Serbian – is widely used in Serbia, and the most common interpretation of its origins links it to the Orthodox Christian Trinity. However, the gesture is also associated with militant Serbian nationalism, making it particularly controversial among progressive Serbs.
This stems from the legacy of the Yugoslav Wars of the 1990s, when the gesture was popularised and instrumentalised by politicians promoting the idea of a Greater Serbia – a state in which all Serbs would live together following the collapse of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia – and by soldiers and paramilitaries fighting in Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Kosovo.
Nationalist issues are certainly not the students’ main priority, as their focus is on fighting corruption and clientelism and reversing the erosion of the rule of law in Serbia. At the same time, a small part of the movement is close to right-wing nationalism, while the movement as a whole has adopted an ambiguous stance towards nationalist slogans and symbols, which remain popular among significant sections of the population. Without the support of all those segments of society dissatisfied with the ruling party’s corruption, the Student List would have little chance of winning the election.
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