The pro-Russian former president of Bosnia's Serb statelet, Milorad Dodik, said his party had retained power in the entity on Sunday, as electoral authorities released preliminary results.
"I am declaring that we have won," Dodik told supporters in Banja Luka, claiming that his party had retained power in the entity and the Serb seat on the shared national presidency.
It was the first major declaration for a dizzying number of posts set to be decided in the general elections for a complex system that has held the partitioned country together since the 1995 peace deal.