LEAD · GEOPOLITICS

A movement born in protest is set to govern Serbia, with an energy deadline, a presidential vote and Expo 2027 waiting.

BY MEHMET ISTANBULLU · ABOUT 6 MINUTES

WHAT HAPPENED

Serbia’s student protest movement has won a parliamentary majority at its first attempt. Late on Sunday, Aleksandar Vučić, who resigned as president last month to lead his party’s list in the snap election, accepted defeat. “It is clear that we have lost these elections, the Student List has won,” he said. Turnout was close to 70%, the highest since 1992. ^[1][2][14]

The latest projection from CeSID, the independent election monitor, gives the Student List 52.2% of the vote and 139 of the 250 seats, more than the 126 needed to govern alone. ^[3] An earlier Ipsos and CeSID projection put the list at 52.9% and 141 seats, against 38.8% and 103 seats for Vučić’s Serbian Progressive Party (SNS) list. ^[4] Official results are still to come.

The list grew out of two years of protests that began when a railway station canopy collapsed in Novi Sad, killing 16 people. It has no obvious leaders and fielded doctors, actors, academics and athletes. Its lead candidate, the cardiologist Ilija Srdanović, told BBC Serbian: “This will be a free state.” Its manifesto promises to remove officials who broke the rules in cracking down on protesters, to stop party loyalists from running public companies and to free the public broadcaster. ^[5] Who becomes prime minister is not yet clear. ^[1] Srdanović’s profile is on The Other Page.

WHY IT MATTERS

The next government inherits a balancing act that defined the last decade in Belgrade. China is a major investor, Russia is the main gas supplier and the European Union is the largest trading partner. ^[1]

Brussels moved first. “We stand ready to support reforms on the rule of law, media freedom, the fight against corruption,” said Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Commission. ^[7] Marta Kos, the enlargement commissioner, said “the doors of the EU are open.” ^[4] Hungary’s prime minister, Péter Magyar, said he was “delighted to hear how much strength our victory in April had given them.” The Bosnian Serb leader Milorad Dodik sent congratulations, and Alain Berset, secretary general of the Council of Europe, welcomed “Vučić’s acceptance of the result and commitment to a peaceful democratic transition.” ^[7]

The winners sound less hurried. Srdanović has said EU membership is not a current priority and that Kosovo is an integral part of Serbia. ^[6] Investors should read that as continuity on the national questions and change on governance at home.

The most urgent file is energy. NIS, Serbia’s oil company, is majority-owned by Russia’s Gazprom Neft and works under licenses from the U.S. Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC). The license that lets NIS operate, and the one that lets Hungary’s MOL negotiate for Gazprom Neft’s 56.15% stake, both expire on Friday, Oct. 30. Under a June 16 shareholders’ agreement, Serbia would buy an extra 5% and the refinery must keep running for at least 10 years. The deal still needs OFAC approval and clearance from the Serbian and Bosnian competition authorities; MOL says there is “no change.” ^[8] A new government will have to decide in its first days whether it keeps that agreement.

For Turkey the stakes are commercial and long-term. Trade between the two countries reached $3.467 billion in 2025, up from $3.003 billion in 2024, against a shared target of $5 billion, and Turkish investment in Serbia has reached about $530 million, according to Turkey’s foreign ministry, which puts Turkish contractors’ work there at about $2 billion. ^[9] More than 1,500 firms with Turkish capital work there, and Turkey has signed up for Expo 2027 in Belgrade. ^[10] ENKA, with Bechtel, is building the 112.4-kilometer Morava Corridor motorway; 100.3 kilometers are open and the rest is due by the end of 2026. ^[11] And since Oct. 6 Serbia has been part of the Vertical Gas Corridor, the route meant to carry gas landed in Greece north through the Balkans. ^[12]

PROFILE: THE MAN WHO CONCEDED

Aleksandar Vučić, 56, has dominated Serbian politics for more than a decade. Born in Belgrade in 1970, he studied at the University of Belgrade and rose in the Serbian Radical Party, serving as information minister from 1998 to 2000. In 2008 he left with Tomislav Nikolić, after a split over support for EU membership, and founded the Serbian Progressive Party. He was defense minister and first deputy prime minister from 2012, prime minister from 2014 to 2017 and president from 2017. ^[13]

Barred from a third presidential term, he resigned on Sept. 27 to run for prime minister, and Ana Brnabić became acting president. A presidential election is due by Dec. 27. ^[13][5] His concession came within hours of the polls closing, from his party’s headquarters in Belgrade, and European officials singled it out. ^[5][7]

BEST MOVES

WHAT TO WATCH

IN BRIEF

AMERICAS

Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva won Brazil’s presidential runoff on Sunday with 51.79% of the vote, or 64,255,891 votes, against 48.21%, or 59,825,984, for Flávio Bolsonaro, according to the electoral court. ^[15] He is the first candidate since 1988 to win after trailing in the first round. ^[15]

Voting was extended by two hours on the order of a Supreme Court justice, AP reported, a decision Bolsonaro’s camp may challenge in court. ^[16][17] Flávio Bolsonaro is the son of former President Jair Bolsonaro. Lula turns 81 on Tuesday; his fourth term begins in January.

The move: If you trade with or invest in Brazil, plan on policy continuity, and keep any court challenge to the extended voting on your watch list for the next two weeks.

THE GULF

Saudi air defenses intercepted missiles and drones over Riyadh and Khamis Mushait on Sunday, and 10 ballistic missiles were fired at the south of the kingdom, coalition spokesman Turki al-Maliki said; two people were injured. The same day, Riyadh’s King Khalid International Airport resumed flights, international from Terminal 2 and domestic from Terminal 1, for the first time since an Oct. 10 attack that killed 13 people and wounded more than 300. The Houthis called the airport “unsafe” and a “military target.” ^[18]

The kingdom’s flagship investment conference has been moved to 2027. ^[19] Brent eased 1.34% to $115.16 a barrel early on Monday, after a 6% gain last week. ^[20]

The move: Before staff fly to Riyadh or the south of the kingdom this week, confirm each flight with the airline the day before and make sure they know the shelter procedure at their hotel and office.

PROPERTY

Chancellor John Healey presents the Budget on Wednesday, Oct. 28. Owners of homes worth £2 million or more are due to pay the High Value Council Tax Surcharge, up to £7,500 a year, from April 2028. ^[22][21]

London MPs are “quietly confident” the threshold will not drop to £1.5 million, The Standard reported. The Times calculated that such a cut would bring about 62,000 more London homes into the charge. The Sunday Times expects the threshold for small business rates relief to rise from £12,000 to £18,000. ^[21]

The move: If you own, or plan to buy or sell, a London home valued near £1.5 million or £2 million, read Wednesday’s Budget documents before you settle on a price.

PROFILE

Ilija Srdanović spent nearly three decades at a heart institute near Novi Sad. Now he leads the list that beat Vučić.

Ilija Srdanović in June 2026. Photo: Mašina, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons; cropped and toned (license)

Ilija Srdanović was born in Novi Sad on Aug. 7, 1970. He qualified as a doctor in 1995, became a specialist in cardiology in 2004 and earned his doctorate in 2012. Since 1997 he has worked at the Institute for Cardiovascular Diseases of Vojvodina in Sremska Kamenica, across the Danube from Novi Sad, where he became a full professor in 2025. ^[23][24]

Until this year he was little known outside medicine. In 2026 he ran for president of Serbia’s Medical Chamber and lost. ^[23] Months later he was the lead candidate of a list with no obvious leaders, which won an outright majority on Sunday. ^[25]

His stated positions are cautious. EU integration, he has said, is not a current priority, and Kosovo is an integral part of Serbia. ^[24] On election night he told BBC Serbian: “This will be a free state.” ^[25]

The move: Read the list’s first appointments, not its slogans. Who it names to run the energy, finance and foreign ministries will tell investors more than any manifesto.

GADGET

Axon on Saturday announced Body 5, its next body-worn camera for police, with 25 times the AI processing power of its predecessor and 20% more battery life. The Body 5 Pro adds a near-focus lens that scans driver’s licenses and four front-facing speakers, so Axon Assistant can translate a conversation aloud. Its Guardian AI tools include Escalation Detection, which flags a scene for a human to review, and Approach Alert. ^[26]

“Officers shouldn’t have to choose between getting information and watching the scene. With Axon Body 5, they don’t,” said Rick Smith, Axon’s founder and chief executive. Availability will be announced soon; Axon also sells to corporate security, hospitality, retail and health care. ^[26]

The move: If your security team wears body cameras, ask your supplier how AI flags are reviewed, by whom, and where the footage is stored.

TURKEY

President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has dismissed his chief adviser, Oktay Saral, Middle East Eye first reported on Sunday. “I have absolute respect for the president’s decision,” Saral said. ^[27]

According to MEE’s Ragıp Soylu, the change is linked to repairing ties with Azerbaijan after a dispute over Baku’s ban on headscarves in schools, as Ankara wants President Ilham Aliyev at this week’s Organization of Turkic States summit in Turkey. Before the change, an Azerbaijani source told MEE, the chance of Aliyev attending was “less than fifty percent.” ^[27] The organization’s full members are Turkey, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan.

The move: If you do business in Baku or with Azerbaijani partners, watch the summit’s guest list this week. Aliyev’s attendance would signal that the dispute is closed.

TURKEY · ONLINE

It began on X on Oct. 19 with a meme of the cartoon character Patrick Star and a Turkish flag, and grew into an exchange of jokes about the Great Wall and the lira, with Japanese, Spanish, Taiwanese and Azerbaijani accounts joining in. Some users suspect bots; that has not been verified. ^[28] It turned serious over Xinjiang: a Turkish post about a Uyghur woman answering “No, I’m Chinese” drew more than 2 million views before the account appears to have been deleted, the South China Morning Post reported. ^[29]

The open question is whether Turkish opinion of China is shifting, and technology is where it would show. China’s 2017 National Intelligence Law says organizations and citizens shall “support, assist and cooperate with state intelligence work.” ^[30] In 2022 the U.S. stopped approving new Huawei and ZTE equipment and barred Hikvision and Dahua cameras for public safety and critical infrastructure pending safeguards. ^[31] Hikvision has said it cannot access users’ data and so cannot pass it to third parties. ^[32]

The move: Ask your building manager which brand your intercom and cameras are, and where their data is stored.

ENERGY

Kimberly Guilfoyle’s exit as U.S. ambassador to Greece, as Washington pushes two energy deals in southeastern Europe, is “likely to play in favour of her counterpart in Ankara,” Tom Barrack, Intelligence Online reported. ^[33] She resigned on Oct. 13 at the White House’s request, Politico reported. ^[34]

Barrack has since said what he wants. “Greece and Turkey have been fighting forever, which is ridiculous… we will have two energy corridors and help each other,” he told the podcaster Mario Nawfal on Oct. 23. One is the Vertical Gas Corridor, which Serbia and North Macedonia joined in Belgrade on Oct. 6, fed by U.S. LNG: Greece’s Atlantic SEE LNG, an AKTOR and DEPA venture, has a 20-year deal with Venture Global rising to 1 million metric tons a year from 2030, and the Alexandroupolis terminal handles 5.5 billion cubic meters. Turkey already moves gas west through TurkStream and TANAP. ^[35] No proposal to link the two routes has been confirmed.

The move: If you buy gas in southeastern Europe, ask your supplier whether its 2027–2030 contracts rest on U.S. LNG through Greece or pipeline gas through Turkey.

LISTEN

The Daily (The New York Times) · Thu., Oct. 22 · 34 min

David M. Halbfinger, the Times’s Jerusalem bureau chief, explains how Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu differs from his main challenger, in a country the episode describes as isolated over the war in Gaza and settler violence in the West Bank. ^[38] Listen before Tuesday’s vote: the result decides who Ankara and the Gulf capitals deal with next.

Listen to the episode →

LISTEN

One Decision (Sir Richard Dearlove, Kate McCann) · Thu., Oct. 22

Karim Sadjadpour of the Carnegie Endowment argues that the Revolutionary Guards, not the clerics, now run Iran: by his estimate, about 90% of its 20 most powerful men are not clerics. He sees four core disputes with Washington: Hormuz, the nuclear program, missiles and drones, and regional proxies. ^[39] Useful for anyone with ships, staff or contracts in the Gulf.

Listen to the episode →

LISTEN

The Koerner Office (Chris Koerner) · Fri., Oct. 23 · 48 min

Frey Chu explains how he builds simple directory websites with AI tools, how his first grew to 90,000 monthly visitors and up to $3,000 a month with little upkeep, and how he finds low-competition niches and earns from ads, leads and subscriptions. ^[40] Worth it for a young person on your team who wants a first side business.

Listen to the episode →

READ

Brett McGurk · Crown · Oct. 6, 2026 · 256 pages

McGurk, who served four U.S. presidents, gives an insider account of 15 months of talks to free the hostages taken by Hamas, with Netanyahu, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and mediators in Qatar, Egypt and Oman, his publisher says. ^[41][42] Read it ahead of Tuesday’s Israeli vote.

See it on Amazon →

READ

Tevi Troy · Regnery History · New in paperback, Oct. 27, 2026 · 368 pages

Troy, a presidential historian and former senior White House aide, tells the story of the alliances and clashes between U.S. presidents and business leaders, from John D. Rockefeller to Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk. ^[43][44] For any company that deals with Washington, it shows how much each side needs the other.

See it on Amazon →

Every pick links to the original. Our note says why it is worth your time; the work is theirs.

SOURCES: FRONT PAGE 1–22 · THE OTHER PAGE 23–37 · YET ANOTHER PAGE 38–44 (ACCESSED OCT. 26, 2026)

Map data: © OpenStreetMap contributors (ODbL), Natural Earth (public domain) · Map: The Other Post

The Other Post: The Daily Briefing for the Conscientious Leader, through an Istanbul lens is independent analysis for decision-makers. Nothing here is investment, legal or medical advice. Issue No. 12 · © 2026 Mehmet Istanbullu