Bosnian Serb nationalist presidential candidate, Mirko Sarovic, won an absolute majority in Saturday's elections, his party said Sunday basing its estimates after 40 percent of the votes had been counted.
Sarovic, the candidate of the Serb Democratic Party (SDS), won 59.67 percent of the votes ahead of his moderate opponent Milorad Dodik who has 29.54 percent, SDS member Goran Popovic was cited as saying early Sunday by the news agency Srna.
Out of 341,569 votes counted across the Bosnian Serb entity of Republika Srpska, Sarovic won 203,833 votes, while Dodik won 100,559.
A total of 840,000 people were registered to vote in Republika Srpska (RS, Bosnian Serb entity).
According to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) spokesman here there are a further 133,148 absentee and 107,792 out-of-country voters registered for the RS polls, mainly Muslims and Croats expelled during the 1992-95 war in Bosnia.
The OSCE said it would reveal preliminary results on Monday, but final figures are not expected before November 17 -- BANJA LUKA (AFP)
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