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Candidate for the Bosnian Presidency: Denis Becirovic from the Social Democratic Party (SDP)
Photo: Uncredited / dpa
According to local media reports, some nationalist candidates were losing in the elections for the three-member state presidency in Bosnia-Herzegovina.
After counting 61 percent of the votes, the Social Democrat Denis Becirovic led the race for the Bosniak seat in the state presidency with 55 percent of the votes ahead of the leader of the Muslim nationalist SDA party, Bakir Izetbegovic, with 41 percent.
This is reported by the German Press Agency.
The reports are based on information from the party headquarters, which received the partial results.
Official results are not expected until Monday.
Becirovic's victory would mean that for the first time in twelve years no SDA politician would be represented in the state presidency.
According to the partial results, the current incumbent, the non-nationalist reformer Zeljko Komsic, may have prevailed in the race for the Croatian seat.
He is said to have accounted for 67 percent of the votes.
The Serbian seat, on the other hand, is likely to remain in the hands of nationalists.
The candidate of the SNSD, which governs the Serbian part of the country, Zeljka Cvijanovic, is said to have won 60 percent of the votes.
She is a confidant of Serbian separatist Milorad Dodik, who previously held the Serbian seat on the state presidency.
This time he ran for the post of president in the Serbian part of the country and was reportedly ahead.
In addition to the state presidency, the citizens of Bosnia also elected the federal parliament, the parliaments in the two largely independent parts of the country, the presidency in the Serbian Republic (RS) and the cantonal administrations in the Bosnian-Croatian Federation (FBiH).
Elections at three levels
The elections took place against a background of growing ethnic conflicts.
The voting was as complex as the country itself: the country, divided into a Serbian and a Croatian-Muslim state with a central government, voted on three levels: in addition to the state level, the Republic of Srpska, the Serbian part of the country, had regional MPs and the president and his two deputies elected.
Observers assume that the nationalist hardliner Milorad Dodik will once again become president of the Republic of Srpska.
The 63-year-old has held this office twice.
jpa/dpa/afp