The long-serving strongman leader of Serbia, Aleksandar Vucic, conceded defeat on Sunday in an election that pitted him and his right-wing party against a diverse student-led opposition movement that spent two years protesting his government. It was a seismic political shift in the Balkan country where Vucic, who had been endorsed by Russian President Vladimir Putin and who denounced the student movement as a foreign-led attempt to unseat him, led with absolute power for 14 years. High turnout and gathering tensions marked the highly contested parliamentary election that was a showdown between Vucic and his right-wing Serbian Progressive Party and university students who, accusing the government of corruption and dismantling democracy, had built a popular following across the country. Serbia's 6.4 million voters were electing lawmakers to the 250-member Parliament. In conceding the election, Vucic said his party projects that his opponents, the youth-backed Students’ List, will take between 135 and 140 seats while his SNS party will have around 105.