According to local media reports, the elections for the three-member state presidency in Bosnia-Herzegovina showed signs of losses for some nationalist candidates. 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. The reports were based on information from the party headquarters, which had the partial results. Official results were 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 previous 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).
