AKIPRESS.COM - Hundreds of demonstrators waving Croatian flags took to the streets of Mostar on Thursday to protest against the election of a moderate politician as the Croat member of Bosnia’s tripartite presidency, saying he did not represent them, Reuters reports.

The protests came four days after elections dominated by nationalist campaigning by the main Bosnia’s Serb, Muslim and Croat parties - and highlighted the tensions now swirling around efforts to form a government.

A coalition led by the Croat nationalist party HDZ won the most votes of Croats in the Federation parliament and in the majority Croat cantons. However, its leader Dragan Covic lost the seat in the presidency to Zeljko Komsic, seen as a more moderate figure.

Members of Thursday’s crowd, some of whom arrived from other majority-Croat towns in Bosnia, told reporters they did not have any particular political affiliation.

But many said Komsic had only won because of the votes of Muslim Bosniaks - an assertion made by Covic after the vote.

Carrying placards with the slogan “Not My President”, they walked from the university in the Croat-held part of the ethnically-divided southern town to the presidency branch office, where they lit candles for what they said was a ‘dying democracy’ in the Balkan country.

Komsic, a Croat who advocates a multi-ethnic Bosnia and has already served two terms in the country’s tripartite inter-ethnic presidency, won with a high margin over Covic, who has campaigned on the creation of a separate Croat-run region within Bosnia.