City voters boycott Bosnia's local polls

By Daria Sito-Sucic

SARAJEVO (Reuters) - Many Bosnian city dwellers, supporters of small, multi-ethnic parties, boycotted local polls on Sunday in which nationalists are expected to hang onto power, 13 years after war ended.

The election commission said that voting in major centres ranged from 40 percent in the capital of Sarajevo to 43 percent in Banja Luka, compared with between 55 to over 70 percent in small towns.

Analysts have warned that people are disillusioned and tired of rhetoric but overall 55 percent turnout was higher than 45 percent in the 2004 local elections.

"We have to be satisfied with general turnout," said election commission president Suad Arnautovic, adding that far more people voted in small towns and rural areas than in large centres, where the turnout was "far below expectations."

More than three million were registered to vote for city councils and mayors in the two autonomous regions created after the 1992-95 war, as well as in the neutral Brcko district.

"I vote in each election, and each time I have no big expectations, and each time I am right, unfortunately," said pensioner Stanko Pemac in Banja Luka, the capital of the Serb half of the country.

HOSTILE RHETORIC

The campaign was marked by hostile rhetoric and incidents, and the police in the Serb Republic last week arrested 17 party activists suspected of trying to bribe voters.