SARAJEVO (AFP) - Bosnia's Serb, Muslim and Croat nationalists are leading the race for the federal parliament and legislatures of the country's two entities, preliminary results announced by the OSCE showed Monday.
With about one-third of ballots counted, the nationalist Serb Democratic Party (SDS) was ahead in the race for seats representing the Bosnian Serb republic in the 42-seat federal parliament, an OSCE official said.
The SDS won 41.3% while the reformist Party of Democratic Progress (PDP) won 19.2% of the votes to fill 14 of the Bosnian Serbs' seats in the parliament.
The Croat Democratic Union (HDZ) won 27.1% while the Muslim Party of Democratic Action (SDA) gained 22.8% of votes in the race for the remaining 28 seats representing the Muslim-Croat entity.
The Social Democrat Party (SDP), which had been embraced by the West as the best hope for ethnic harmony in Bosnia, came third with 21.9%.
Postwar Bosnia is made up of two entities - the Muslim-Croat Federation and the Serb's Republika Srpska (RS). Bosnian Serb nationalists of the SDS were also ahead in the ballot-count for the RS presidency and the republic's national assembly.
SDS presidential candidate Mirko Sarovic won 47.9% while his main challenger; western-backed Prime Minister Milorad Dodik won 31.3%, according to preliminary results.
In the race for the Bosnian Serb assembly, the SDS picked up 36.8% of the votes while Dodik's Party of Independent Social Democrats (SNSD) obtained 17.9%.
The HDZ and the SDA appeared set to garner the lion's share of seats representing the Muslim-Croat federation in the parliament.
For the Muslim-Croat parliament, the HDZ won 23.4% followed by their Muslim counterparts from the SDA who garnered 22.2%. The SDP came third with 20.9%.
