(ANSA-AFP) - SARAJEVO, 16 NOV - Bosnia's ruling Muslim and
Serb nationalists suffered setbacks in the country's two largest
cities in weekend local elections, a result analysts said Monday
heralds change in the ethnically-split nation. Bosnia, one of
Europe's poorest countries, has remained deeply divided along
ethnic lines since the end of its 1990s war. Muslim and Serb
hardliners maintained their respective grasps on power in
capital Sarajevo and the northern town of Banja Luka, populated
mainly by ethnic Serbs. But in Sunday's vote a motley coalition
of right-wingers and progressives defeated the main Muslim Party
of Democratic Action (SDA) in three out of four Sarajevo
boroughs.
"This is the beginning of a new Bosnia-Herzegovina ... in which
most people in this country want to live," said Srdjan Mandic,
of the multi-ethnic Nasa Stranka ("Our Party"), who won in
central Sarajevo. In the Serb-run Rebublika Srpska, the
mayoralty of its capital Banja Luka was claimed by Drasko
Stanivukovic, a right-winger and fierce critic of the Alliance
of Independent Social Democrats (SNSD) of Bosnian Serb leader
Milorad Dodik. (ANSA-AFP).
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