Large crowds have been taking to the streets in Tbilisi, Budapest, Bucharest, and Belgrade for months in succession.
RFE/RL's Georgian, Hungarian, Romanian, and Balkan services have been reporting on the demonstrations and the root causes driving them.
Georgia
In Georgia, the protests began in October after the ruling Georgian Dream party claimed victory in parliamentary elections that international monitors said were marred by vote-buying, double-voting, physical violence, and intimidation.
Since then, there have been protests every day. On March 16 -- day 109 of the protests -- small crowds blocked Rustaveli Avenue, one of Tbilisi's main arteries.
More protests were scheduled for March 17.
The numbers oscillate from a few hundred to thousands. Protesters have targeted state TV, which is resolutely pro-government, as well as court and government buildings.
Security forces have responded to the peaceful gatherings with brutal violence and mass arrests, drawing condemnation from the United States and the European Union.
Recently, the government tightened laws to make the crackdown even harsher. Fines for blocking a street rose tenfold, for instance.
The authorities have been surveilling participants with Chinese-made cameras with facial-recognition capabilities.
Hungary
A crowd of more than 50,000 people took to the streets of Budapest on March 15 to support the opposition Tisza party, which is threatening to break the mold of Hungarian politics.
Tisza is led by Peter Magyar, a former ally of Prime Minister Viktor Orban who gained national prominence when he resigned from senior positions in state-owned enterprises and a bank in February 2024.
Magyar, now 43, said he was entering politics to combat corruption and cronyism under Orban, and shortly afterward became leader of Tisza.
At that point Tisza was a small opposition party. But under Magyar's leadership, it finished second in the June 2024 European parliamentary elections with nearly 30 percent of the vote.
The party's support has continued to grow, and Magyar is now likely to challenge Orban in next year’s parliamentary elections.
Support for Tisza has grown despite Orban’s almost total dominance of the media, which has been widely criticized internationally.
Human Rights Watch has said that media freedom has “been under attack in Hungary” since Orban took the reins in the country.
Hungary’s faltering economy, plus voter fatigue after 15 years of Orban’s rule, have boosted the opposition.
Romania
Romania has been rocked by political tensions since presidential elections in November.
Nationalist-populist Calin Georgescu came from nowhere to emerge as the leading candidate after the first round of voting, with two million votes despite having spent next to nothing on his campaign.
Romanian authorities annulled the results amid accusations of Russian meddling in the campaign.
Russia has denied backing Georgescu, a vocal critic of NATO and an opponent of continued support for Ukraine.
Georgescu's supporters were boosted when US Vice President JD Vance used his speech at the Munich Security Conference in February to criticize the decision to annul the election.
This was followed by a spy scandal in which six men have been charged with treason over an alleged Russian-backed coup plot.
There were violent clashes between Georgescu supporters and police following a decision to bar him from running in new presidential elections scheduled for May.
This decision was subsequently upheld in a unanimous Constitutional Court ruling.
Serbia
Serbia has seen months of student-led mass protests following the deadly collapse of a railway station roof in Novi Sad in November.
On March 15, the protests were the biggest yet, with estimates of around 300,000 people on the streets of Belgrade.
Aerial footage captured the scale of the gatherings.
The students are demanding accountability, amid reports that corrupt practices led to shoddy construction at the railway station. Fifteen people died.
As the protests tapped a broader mood of discontent, Prime Minister Milos Vucevic resigned in January.
Now, President Aleksandar Vucic has moved ahead with an official procedure that could lead to snap presidential elections. Like Orban, he's a long-standing leader, serving as president since 2017 after serving as prime minister from 2014.
Meanwhile, his opponents have accused him of increasing pressure on the students, civil society, and opposition with arrests and smear campaigns.
More protests are planned.
