Bosnia voted today to choose new leaders and a parliament amid mounting social discontent in a country plagued with corruption and ethnic disputes hampering its approach to the European Union.
Nearly 20 years since a devastating war between its Croats, Muslims and Serbs the country is one of Europe's poorest and remains split along ethnic lines.
The 1992-1995 conflict, which killed 100,000 people, left the former Yugoslav Republic divided into two semi-autonomous entities -- the ethnic Serb Republika Srpska and the Muslim-Croat Federation -- linked by weak central institutions.
Some 3.3 million voters are eligible to cast ballots to elect three members -- a Croat, a Muslim and a Serb -- of the joint presidency as well as a new central parliament. They will also elect assemblies for the two entities and in Republika Srpska a president.
"I will not vote for current rulers. They did not improve anything," Nadja Kadric, a librarian in her 50s, told AFP in Sarajevo, echoing the discontent of many Bosnians.
"I hope that many youngsters will vote and that they will have the courage to elect those who were never in power."
As always ahead of elections here, politicians have returned to nationalist rhetoric to attract votes.
Bosnian Serb President Milorad Dodik, running for a new term, has renewed threats that his entity might secede.
"The aim of my policy is that we are less and less an entity and more a state," he told a campaign rally.
In response, the Muslim member of the presidency, Bakir Izetbegovic, who is also running for a second term, has appealed for "unity" among Muslims.
At a Sarajevo rally, Izetbegovic warned that politics of "divisions will not pass" and slammed ethnic Croats' aspirations for a separate entity for themselves.
But Ivana Saric, a student from Sarajevo, decided to vote for a small multi-ethnic party. But she said she did not believe many would follow her example.
"People are afraid to choose major changes. Maybe they are traumatised by the past. Twenty years ago they chose democracy, later independence and then they had war."
Bosnia's economic figures are grim. The unemployment rate officially stands at 44 per cent while the average monthly salary is 415 euros (USD 525).
The country is also plagued by corruption, which costs taxpayers some 750 million euros annually, according to non-governmental organisations.
Growing public discontent escalated in February into the kind of popular uprising not seen since the brutal conflict of two decades ago.
