Serbia votes in election pitting longtime leader against student movement

NEW: Serbia votes in a snap election that could break Aleksandar Vucic's long grip on power, with polls showing the populist leader in a tight race against a student-led anti-corruption movement.

Serbia is voting today, and Aleksandar Vucic could actually lose.

The man who's run the country for over a decade, first as prime minister, then president, resigned in September just to run for prime minister again. Against him, a student movement with 250 candidates, professors, actors, farmers, led by a cardiologist named Ilija Srdanovic. You can see the scale of it here, the final Student List rally in Belgrade drew enormous crowds.

This all started two years ago, when a train station canopy collapsed in Novi Sad and killed 16 people. The anger over that, and the corruption people blamed for it, never went away. It grew into the biggest challenge Vucic has ever faced.

One Ipsos poll has his party at 47 to the students' 40. Other polls put the students ahead. Either way, a leader who looked untouchable is now in a genuine fight, and six million Serbians decide tonight whether a canopy collapse ends an era.

This is Sara White, reporting for HIT.