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NEW YORK/SARAJEVO, October 8 (FENA) - Bosnian Serb nationalist leader Milorad Dodik and Šefik Dzaferović, the candidate of the largest Bosniak party, have won the Serb and Bosniak seats in Bosnia's triumvirate presidency, the election commission said early Monday, reports The New York Times today.
Moderate Croat Željko Komšić, who already served two terms in the presidency, won the Croat seat with 49.5 percent of the vote, winning over nationalist Dragan Čović from the largest Croat party, HDZ.
Dodik secured 55 percent of the vote and Džaferović 38 percent, based on about 42 percent of counted ballots, the Election Commission President Branko Petrić said at a news conference.
The turnout was 53.3 percent of voters, Petrić said.
The ballot was a test for Bosnia and Herzegovina to determine if it will progress toward European Union membership and NATO integration or remain held back by ethnic rivalries.
More than two decades after a war in which 100,000 died, leading Serb, Croat and Bosniak parties campaigned on nationalist tickets, reviving wartime pledges while failing to offer any clear economic or political visions.
About 1.7 million voters took part in the presidential and parliamentary elections, choosing members of Bosnia's tripartite inter-ethnic presidency, consisting of a Bosniak, a Croat and a Serb, and lawmakers for parliament's lower house.
They also voted for leaders and assemblies of its two autonomous regions – Republika Srpska and the Federation of BiH, and of the Federation's 10 cantons.
Dodik, a pro-Russian leader who has repeatedly advocated secession of the Serb Republic and integration with Serbia, earlier proclaimed victory in his party stronghold in the northern town of Banja Luka.
Analysts believe that he will work to weaken the presidency.
"My first priority will be the position of the Serb people and of Republika Srspka," Dodik said, referring to Bosnia's autonomous region that he has presided over until now.
"I believe that Bosnia and Herzegovina also may progress if everyone is respected," he added.
Čović said he garnered the majority of Croat votes and that Komšić won “only due to Bosniak votes.” The HDZ had argued for the creation of new ethnically based election units in which Croats would vote only for their ethnic candidate.
"Such election results may cause an unprecedented crisis in Bosnia and Herzegovina," Čović said in the southern town of Mostar.
There is a realistic possibility that the formation of the Federation parliament's upper house may be blocked after the Bosniak and Croat parties failed to agree on how to change the election law before the vote.
The election commission will announce preliminary results of the parliamentary vote later on Monday.
(FENA) S. R.
