Final election results announced in Bosnia-Herzegovina

Bosnia-Herzegovina's Central Election Commission announced Wednesday the final results of the Oct. 1 general elections, largely confirming the forecasts for most political parties.

According to the final results, the new members of the country's tripartite presidency are Bosnian Muslim Haris Silajdzic of the Party for Bosnia-Herzegovina (SBiH), Bosnian Serb Nebojsa Radmanovic of the Alliance of Independent Social Democrats (SNSD), and Bosnian Croat Zeljko Komsic of the Social Democratic Party (SDP).

Silajdzic's party, however, is still not the largest party in the House of Representatives. The SBiH won eight seats in the 42-member lower house, while the Muslim nationalist Party of Democratic Action (SDA) garnered nine seats.

The Bosnian Serb SNSD won seven seats, followed by SDP and Bosnian Croat coalitions with five seats each and nationalist Serb Democratic Party (SDS) with three seats. The other five seats are divided by five small parties.

In the Bosnian Serb entity the Srpska Republic, the SNSD of present Bosnian Serb Prime Minister Milorad Dodik won 41 of 93 seats in the entity's parliament, but this is not sufficient for the party to form a government on its own.

Milan Jelic of the SNSD was elected for the entity's new president, replacing the leader of the nationalist SDS Dragan Cavic.

The SDA, the Muslim nationalist party of the late Bosnian Muslim leader Alija Izetbegovic, remains the leading party in the Bosnia's Muslim-Croat federation entity with 28 seats in the 98-seat federation parliament.

A total of 54.8 percent of some 2.75 million eligible voters cast their ballots in the country's general elections that were conducted independently for the first time. A total of 7,245 candidates from 56 political parties, coalitions and independent groups were running for posts.

According to the constitution, Bosnia-Herzegovina is comprised of two entities -- the Srpska Republic and the Muslim-Croat federation. Besides the central government and national parliament, each entity has its own government and parliament.

Source: Xinhua