Leaderless student movement wins Serbian election

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Go to odoo.com. That's odoo.com to learn more. This is the Global News Podcast from the BBC World Service. I'm Pete Ross, and at 15 hours GMT on Monday the 26th of October, these are our main stories, with three elections dominating the headlines. A student-led group has secured victory in parliamentary elections in Serbia, but who'll lead the country? Israelis go to the polls on Tuesday in what many see as the country's most important election. The polls are held in the most important ever election. And Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has said he will govern for all Brazilians after emphatic victory in the presidential election there. But what will his victory mean for the environment? Also in this podcast. You look at the military, for example. If you had an empty chair for everyone who's missing, there'd be 44 of them. An annual meeting of top Chinese officials has begun in Beijing. But the country's secretive political system means it's not even easy to get to work out who'll be there, and whose voice will count. We begin this podcast in Serbia, where there's been a political earthquake. As you may have heard in our last edition of the Global News Podcast, the country's long-standing leader, Aleksandar Vucic, has been ousted by a youth movement, the Student List Party, which grew out of anti-corruption and anti-authoritarianism demonstrations, has won a clear majority. The movement is unusual, in that it has no named leader, and will be represented in Parliament by people. Doctors, academics, actors, who have little political experience. Luka Maksic, a student at the University of Belgrade, explains how the organisation had mobilised. Our greatest triumph was not in the leaders we raised above us, but in the day we rose beyond the need for them. It is because our movement has four critical things that we managed to do so. The first thing is that we pushed for no-leadership, there's no student leader. I'm giving you an interview now, but another student will give another interview for some other international media, because we do not want anyone to consider anyone as a leader of a student movement. But second, we are sovereign. The only influence we had was the influence of the people of our country. We talked to them every day, we went to villages, we listened to what the people of this country wanted. We didn't look for help from any, investors, or we didn't listen to any particular interest group. Thirdly, we were peaceful. We avoided violence, which leads me to my fourth point. To avoid all that violence, we had to put three times as much effort, which is the fourth thing. We put so much effort, we had to walk so many kilometres, we had to suffer so, so many beatings to succeed. So, who will run Serbia? Our correspondent Nick Thorpe is in Belgrade. We don't know whether. even Alexander Vucic, when he conceded this election, whether he was able to ring any of the students, because the students are very proud, this disparate student organisation, student movement, they have no leaders. When I've been trying to get through to them in the past days, I have managed to speak to several of them, but they never disclosed even their surnames, their family names, so I was able to speak to them on the phone and meet some of them in person. But it's a very decentralised. movement, and none of them stood for office themselves. So basically they set up this student movement, set up in a very democratic, decentralised way at the five main universities of Serbia. They selected personalities, sports personalities, doctors, lawyers, actors, and so on. Academics, a lot of academics on the list, because inevitably the students themselves know a lot of their own professors, who they felt would be untarnished by either working with the previous government or indeed with the opposition, and uncorrupted or uncorruptible. So, very interesting situation now here, that the students have won. We know the names of those 140 or so MPs who will get into the new parliament, the parliament building here behind me in Serbia, but we have no idea who will form the new government. And so, we might not have an idea who's going to form this new government, but what we probably do know is it's going to be some fairly unexperienced politicians against some experienced politicians from Mr Vucic's party. How difficult will it be for the incoming government to create stability in the face of that? I think it will be difficult, because in a way they'll be thrown into the lion's den, if you like, of the parliament behind me. They will face off those 140 or so people elected on the students' list, with no political experience, will be facing 104 or 103 very experienced parliamentarians of Mr Vucic's party, radical nationalist party, the Serbian Progressive Party. But I think there are examples already in Europe. The country I'm normally based in, Hungary, we had something a bit similar in April this year, when Viktor Orban, another autocratic, even orthodox, authoritarian leader, was defeated. And I think Hungary, in the past months, and before that, Poland, under Donald Tusk, the Prime Minister there since 2023, they have experience, really, of dismantling a more authoritarian, a very centralised power base, encouraging anti-corruption authorities, rebuilding a state, making it more democratic, freeing the media from all the power, and I think it will be difficult for them to do that. Nick Thorpe in Belgrade. Now, to another election. The Middle East's only democracy goes to the polls on Tuesday. Israelis must decide whether or not to call time on Benjamin Netanyahu's political career. Our Middle East correspondent, Lucy Williamson, has been speaking to voters across the country about what many see as the most critical election in their history. After four years of the most right-wing government in Israel's history, the Middle East has become the most critical election in the history of Israel's history. This huge weekend rally by opposition supporters had a real buzz of expectation. But this race is too close to call. I haven't seen this street so crowded for a very long time. A lot of the people here tonight have been protesting against this government for months and years. This is their best chance to get rid of it, they're telling me. Israel is a country of coalitions, and the man leading the main opposition bloc is Gadi Eisenkot. A former army chief from a working-class Moroccan background, softly spoken and low-key. He's framing this election as critical for Israel's identity as a democratic, liberal, tolerant country. Israel's experienced, media-savvy prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, says this election is about Israel's security. Dropping into the late-night bars at Jerusalem's Mahneh Yehuda, a market to hammer home his message. Elect the opposition, and you'll be putting Israel at risk. In a nearby market cafe, Shlomi Basher told me Netanyahu was still the man to keep Israel safe. Okay, on the 7th of October he messed up. But he's changed the Middle East, destroyed Hezbollah, Syria, part of Iran, and also most of Gaza. 70% of Gaza is in our hands. And the work is not finished. We need him to be re-elected so he can finish the job. This is Israel's first election since the 7th of October Hamas attacks. In the Netanyahu stronghold of Sderot on Gaza's border, Eyal Hajbi, the area's security chief, lights candles each day for his colleagues who were killed. Looking out across the ruins of Gaza's northern neighborhoods, Eyal said he'd be thinking about his murdered colleagues when he voted on Tuesday. When I go to the ballot box, I will definitely think about that. Before 7th of October, I wouldn't have said we should. should destroy Gaza. Now I say they shouldn't be here. How many years did you vote Bibi Netanyahu? Your whole life. A lifelong Netanyahu supporter, Eyal, is now voting for the far right. I always voted for the right, for Likud, and my family too. If once we deliberated over it, today we don't think twice, we vote. Further south along the Gaza border, in Kibbutz near Oz, the bullet-scarred, burnt-out safe rooms of former residents stand as memorials. One of those killed here was the owner of a small vineyard now run by his grandson, Gal Palka. A few wooden tables set out onto sheets of canvas. In this old bastion of the left, 26-year-old Gal is choosing between Eisenkot's centrist party and another opposition party, the left-leaning Democrats. But he says security, won't decide his vote. I think that we have more important issues here in Israel. More important than security? Yeah, that's right. Economics, socialised problems, educational problems, health problems. I think that the 7th of October was a major event, but sadly it didn't change anything about how we observe ourselves. Next to him is his British cousin, Jill, flown in specially to vote in what she sees as a new era. I can't sit and complain about Netanyahu if I don't come and try and do something to move him away from here. For the past four years, Israel's battle over values and identity has been fought in the streets and the courts. This election is seen by many as a decisive moment for Israel's democracy, its security and its future. Lucy Williamson. We also heard in our earlier podcast about how in Brazil, the incumbent left-wing president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, has won a stunning victory in a presidential runoff. This was despite being behind his rival, the right-wing senator, Flavio Bolsonaro, after the first round. In the end, Lula won by more than four million votes, a significant turnaround. It was the first time in Brazil's history that a candidate who lost the first round of voting came back to win the second. Lula's victory will have major ramifications for many aspects of life in Brazil. Not least the rate at which the Amazon rainforest is disappearing. Lula has previously pledged to achieve zero deforestation by 2030. So, is his victory good news for the environment? Here's our Global Affairs reporter, Mimi Swaby. We only had, a couple of weeks ago, this latest results saying that satellite data showed deforestation fell by nearly 42% last year. And a lot of that has been attributed to President Lula's policies and enforcing. more protection for resources, especially in the Amazon and for communities who live within it. This could have been a very different story for the Amazon if Flavio Bolsonaro came into power. And it's thought that, much like his father, the Amazon would have deeply suffered because land grabbing would have occurred more, prioritising land development would have happened, extracting its resources rather than protecting it. And that is something that deeply concerned environmentalists around the world, not just in Brazil. Flavio Bolsonaro did say, though, he was going to. crack down on organised crime in the Amazon, but it's very much thought that he would have followed his father's footsteps, opposing or in contradiction to Lula, who has said that he's going to eradicate deforestation by 2030. Good to note, though, important to note that environmentalists don't think that Lula is this saviour of the Amazon as he once was. He's been under heavy criticism for allowing oil drilling or offshore drilling to occur just off the mouth of the Amazon. So, he's very much seen as protecting the Amazon more, but not fully in its corners as a person. Flavio, so far. Mimi Sweeby. Still to come in this podcast. It's dirty. It's smelly. There's been a lack of investment, a lack of greenery. I'm going to recognise that the way to support our businesses, the way to support jobs, is to invest in the present and the future. Britain's most famous shopping street bans vehicles. Investing with Schwab is like. It's like spending a Saturday at a great farmer's market. You can fill your reusable tote with a bit of everything. Maybe you go for some free-range, self-directed investing. Or perhaps you pick up a few farm-fresh trades while you peruse. You can even get help from a dedicated advisor. 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Decisions made in Washington can affect your portfolio every day. But what policy changes should investors be watching? Washington Wise is an original podcast from Charles Schwab that unpacks the stories making news in Washington right now, and how they may affect your finances and portfolio. Listen at schwab.com slash Washington Wise. That's schwab.com slash Washington Wise. This is the Global News Podcast. Now, to the United States. At the beginning of the year, two things seemed likely to happen in November's midterm elections. One was that the Republican Party would lose the House of Representatives. The second was that they would keep control of the Senate. That is no longer a certainty. Polls suggest that the House of Representatives would lose the House of Representatives. A number of Republican-held Senate seats may flip to the Democrats. But in the state of Michigan, Democrats themselves risk losing a Senate seat. The party's candidate, Abdul El-Sayed, a Muslim from the left of the party, is facing an unusually tight race. Our North America editor, Sarah Smith, has been to Detroit. Abdul El-Sayed's supporters have all learned their lines through the campaign. They can all chant his slogan, money out of politics, money in your pocket, and Medicare for all. It's really noticeable how many young and first-time voters are at this election rally in a school gymnasium. They're excited by El-Sayed's left-wing platform that promises things like universal health care. Out campaigning, ringing on doorbells for the first time is student I think we're starting to see a national shift. It's not just Abdul, but also like progressives across the country. I mean, you're seeing just so much progressive energy because in order to counteract the horror that has been this administration, radical injustice needs radical solutions. Dr. El-Sayed is not the candidate the Democratic Party establishment wanted to run in Michigan. But when he narrowly defeated a moderate in the primary election, he became the standard bearer for the party's left wing. Some other Democratic candidates are leading in opinion polls in heavily Republican states. So why, I asked him, is El-Sayed neck and neck in the race to hold on to the Senate seat in Michigan? Well, every state's different. Our races are really quite close. There's also a historic amount of money being spent here, right? More money spent against me in a primary than has ever been spent against any candidate in history in a primary. We're going to continue to chase every vote. President Trump came to Michigan to attack El-Sayed. I'm here to keep a jihadist brotherhood member from becoming a United States senator. From the president down, he has faced unfounded accusations of links to terrorism. So being bought off by the Muslim Brotherhood, having donors to his campaign from Hamas. Including during a TV debate with his Republican opponent, Mike Rogers. If you are going to go to the United States Senate, we need to know, are you for America or are you for these terrorist groups overseas? Mike, it's really quite beneath you. The war in Gaza and the U.S. has gone on for a long time. It's been a long time since the U.S. came to the United States. The U.S. has been a long time since the U.S. Dr. El-Sayed has denied that his criticism of Israel amounts to anti-Semitism, insisting he loves Judaism. But many Jewish Democrats like Mimi Price-Militek are refusing to vote for him. We need people that support us here. That doesn't mean they cannot criticize us. Of course they can. And not every criticism towards Israel is anti-Semitic. I criticize Israel. I mean, I'm very identified with my Judaism. I'm a Jewish woman. which you don't identify as a democrat as well i do but i don't believe in vote blue no matter who you can hear the excitement here in detroit as former president obama takes the stage campaigning for el sayed obama has come to sprinkle some stardust on this campaign and also to lend his moderate establishment support to this left-wing candidate michigan you and i have proved before it's hard to stop change when its time has come barack obama speaking at a rally in michigan ending that report by sarah smith china's communist party leadership is holding what's perhaps its most important meeting of the year the country's 300 or so top politicians have gathered in beijing to look at the major issues facing the nation at previous meetings like this there's been discussion about who will lead china in the future but there's been absolutely no indication that xi jinping is likely to step down even after 14 years at the top our china correspondent steven mcdonnell told me why we should be interested in this closed door meeting we're interested because although we don't know what's going on inside this meeting it is nevertheless very important these meetings of the central committee that's around 300 people happen roughly every year and they sort of divide them into different topics if you're like and this one's all about political governance so what it's seen to be aimed at doing is kind of cracking the whip and allowing xi jinping to pull people into line to make sure there are no dissenters and what have you now people will be thinking well sure that all sounds very interesting but if it's behind closed doors how do you know what's going on well the short answer is we don't really accept that they do release some information at the end there's a sort of short blurb that comes out on the last day and then a few days later some longer explanatory notes now in there there could be certain language which points to a policy shift or a certain emphasis that we haven't seen before or importantly appointments so new people put into these different positions now the reason that's important is that lately because of xi jinping's crackdown i mean the purging has been so rife that if you're in that meeting which is going on this week and you're you're looking around and gee there are a lot of empty chairs here i mean assuming there are empty chairs who are for people are not there they probably aren't but you know people know who who's not there and you know you look at the military for example if you had an empty chair for everyone who's missing there'd be 44 of them i mean if you look at the central military commission this is the seven person body that runs the people's liberation army five of those people have been purged it's only xi jinping and another general who's been purged and another general who's been purged and another general who's been purged are left on that committee right now so there could be new appointments to those roles and that's always interesting and so this is why we're sort of hanging up every announcement as it comes to try and interpret what's really going on in the upper echelons of politics here and as well as of course leadership issues what kind of issues is the country as a whole facing at the moment that will also likely be discussed so if this was a i hesitate to say normal uh and i think it's going to be a really big issue i think it's going to be a really big issue i think it's going to be a really big issue i think it's going to be a really big issue i think it's going to be a really big issue i think it's going to be a really big issue i think it's going to be a really big issue i think it's going to be a really big issue i think it's going to be a really big issue a sort of uh arrangement where there was transparency and you knew what the government was discussing of course you'd be talking about the economy officially this meeting is not speaking about the economy but that is the number one issue here really i mean sure there's tensions with taiwan and the us and you name it but while on the one hand the chinese economy is exporting its socks off domestically there are huge problems huge problems for example with unemployment and especially youth unemployment youth unemployment's at 18 churning out all these graduates there's no jobs for them and while china's got these great bits and pieces of the economy electric vehicles robots solar panels wind turbines sure these are fantastic sectors and they're exporting gear all over the world they're just not soaking up enough unemployed people they're not making up for the big collapse in the property industry here which used to make up say 25 percent of the whole economy it's probably at about eight percent or something now so you can see where the problem is stephen mcdonnell and keep an eye out for a special edition of the global news podcast coming soon about china's future after xi jinping we've been answering your questions about how the next generation of communist leaders could influence the way the world superpower is governed now if you've ever visited london chances are you've walked along oxford street in the center of the city the famous shopping street is the most famous shopping street in the world and it's around half a million people a day a trip down the famous thoroughfare used to be something to behold particularly at christmas as this archive television broadcast makes clear the lights have everywhere been brighter people happier more to buy more money to spend the doubts and fears that nagged at our minds at previous post-war christmases have passed away so there was nothing to prevent great britain having a great christmas that news report from 1959 detailing the hustle and bustle of europe's busiest shopping street but for many the glamour of oxford street has worn thin over recent years so in a bid to improve the experience for shoppers much of the street is being pedestrianized cars buses taxis and bicycles will all disappear along a one kilometer stretch the maid of london sadiq can is behind the idea well i'm somebody who's loved this street since i was a boy i worked here in many of the uh shops but in recent years the last 10 or so years it has been in decline i call it managed decline not just taxis and buses minicabs and cars pedicabs it's dirty it's smelly there's been a lack of investment a lack of greenery i'm going to recognize that the way to support our businesses the way to support jobs is to invest in the present and the uh future and i'm looking forward to the comeback of this fantastic street not just in advance of christmas but over the next few years as well our correspondent graham satchel told us more well this has been uh in the making since the 1960s it's a row that's gone on for decade after decade what to do with this street it is known as the busiest shopping street in europe known colloquially here as the nation's high street i'm standing in the middle of it quite a lot of activity as bits of it have been blocked off preventing traffic and allowing pedestrians in they're putting in this temporary mat that says oxford and and it is a historic moment i think for the mayor of london who has really pushed this through half a million people a day uh come to oxford street and at the moment that they have been stuck on the pavements the hope is that footfall will increase that london can count itself alongside places like barcelona and paris and other major cities in the world that have huge areas now that are pedestrianized you go to places like sydney and los angeles i mean they're just everywhere is pedestrianizing london seemed to have been as far as the mayor was concerned falling behind so this is very much a first step and the hope is that it will be a significant improvement for the economy here in central london oxford street over the years has had a terrible reputation it's become very tatty very polluted very down at heel the shops along here some of them have been frankly a little less than desired if you live in london like i do people don't really come to oxford street that's the truth of it so the hope is that opening it up making it a place where there are a lot of people who are going to be there are trees and seating areas a much more pleasant place will mean that people will want to come graham satchel now to end this podcast we turn to president trump and his well-known insults directed at foreign countries sometimes to friends as well as enemies who would have thought for example that canada would have come in for so much vitriol mr trump is not shy about pointing out other countries flaws and failures he's used a phrase we can't use in the podcast to describe the difficulties faced in haiti libya and france and somalia he's now used those same words to talk about a country not thought of as one of the world's most troubled norway i asked our global affairs reporter paul moss what he had to say well as you've indicated i'm not going to tell you exactly what he said because i probably wouldn't ever be broadcasting again yeah i mean it's difficult isn't it because donald trump has always outraged people with the things he's said ever since he first campaigned to be president indeed before that so you may get a sense of deja vu but yeah once again he's turned his ire on norway he's still very upset that he wasn't awarded the nobel peace prize a prize which is awarded by a committee made up of prominent norwegians he was upset about this last year when the prize instead went to the venezuelan opposition leader maria corina machado but at least she was a fan of donald trump what's really rubbed salt in the wound this year is that the prize went to navi pille now she is a judge or has been a judge on the international criminal court an institution which is now in the hands of the venezuelan opposition leader maria corina donald trump really does hate so yeah sunday night he was campaigning in michigan he was supposed to be there to support the local candidate in what is a very important swing state but he did as he so often does go off script a bit and what was on his mind was the insult he thought he personally suffered at the hands of the nobel committee i didn't get the nobel prize even though i ended it so i don't want anybody from norway i don't want anything to do with norway think of it i settled eight wars and i got two more comments So I'm not enlightened. love with Norway. Frankly, Norway sucks. Well, as we've indicated, he did use another word about Norway. One, what can I say, associated with toilets. We heard him there sort of indicating he didn't want any more Norwegians coming to the US. Now, I haven't heard about any official change of policy. It's worth mentioning an awful lot of Norwegians did go to the United States in the 19th century. They settled a lot of them in the North Midwest, where the bleak environment reminded them of home. And in fact, if you go to Minnesota, a lot of people say you can still hear the strains of the sing-song Scandinavian accent in the local accent they have there. Well, you say no official response, but have we heard anything from Norway at all? Yeah, they're kind of bemused by this negative attention. I've spent a lot of time in Norway. They tend to think of themselves as sort of nice people who've used the enormous amount of money they got from North Sea oil to do a lot of charitable work in the world. The Norwegian foreign minister, Espen Bart Eder, has responded. He says about Donald Trump, he knows very well that the Nobel Committee is independent. We've reminded him of that, if anyone's wondering, and that is still the case. I think, you know, they're able to rise above it for one simple reason. He's, Donald Trump's used a word about Norway, he used about Yemen and Haiti. Norway has one of the highest material standards of living in the world. So perhaps they're not too worried. Paul Moss. And that's all from us for now. If you want to get in touch, you can email us at globalpodcast at bbc.co.uk. You can also search for the Global News Podcast on YouTube. This edition was mixed by Vladimir Muzetska. The producer was Alice Adderley. The editor is Karen Martin. I'm Pete Ross. Until next time. Goodbye.