Moderate Bosniak candidate leads in race for presidency seat

A woman casts her ballot during presidential and parliamentary elections at a polling centre in a school in Livno, Bosnia and Herzegovina October 2, 2022. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic

SARAJEVO (Reuters) -Moderate Bosniak candidate Denis Becirevic is leading in the run-up for the seat on Bosnia's tripartite inter-ethnic presidency, preliminary results based on a partial vote count showed on Monday.

Becirevic, the Social Democratic Party (SDP) member who was backed by 11 opposition civic-oriented parties, won 55.78% of the votes over Bakir Izetbegovic, whose nationalist Bosniak (Bosnian Muslim) Party of the Democratic Action (SDA) party has been in power since the end of the war in 1996.