SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Herzegovina-Early returns from this weekend's local elections in Bosnia showed that voters in this country of bitter divisions remain aligned along ethnic lines.

Preliminary results Monday showed that the Party of Independent Social Democrats ran strongest among Bosnian Serbs, and the Party of Democratic Action won among Muslim Bosniaks.

The two main Croat parties, the Croat Democratic Union, HDZ, and its breakaway branch, HDZ 1990, won most of the mayoral seats in Croat-dominated areas.

None of this was unexpected in a country where ethnic division has sparked war and genocide in the past.

The election commission said Monday that turnout among the more then 3 million eligible voters was 55 percent, and was higher in rural areas than in cities. This usually benefits nationalists.

Bosnians were choosing 140 mayors and members of 149 city councils in the fourth local elections since Bosnia's 1992-95 war.

Since the end of the war, Bosnia has been divided along ethnic lines. It consists of two ministates, a federation of Muslim Bosniaks and Roman Catholic Croats, and a Christian Orthodox Serb republic, called Republika Srpska.

Traditionally, each ethnic group votes for some of its own national parties to run its area of dominance. No party has ever been strong throughout the country.

Analysts had predicted many Bosnians would skip this year's local elections because they were tired of the nationalism and populism that has crept into political debate. But this proved true only in larger cities.

Political analyst Tanja Topic said voters in cities are "apathetic, some even disgusted with politics in general; they do not see a new political force on the stage that could offer some quality solutions."

Bosniaks and Bosnian Croats generally back a united country that ultimately would join the European Union. Most Bosnian Serbs, however, want to preserve at least the autonomy of their ministate, and some cling to the hope that sparked the war, that their half of the country can secede.

The current Prime Minister of the Bosnian Serb republic, Milorad Dodik, who heads the Party of Independent Social Democrats, SNSD, took steps to distance his ministate from the rest of the country in the days before the elections. He promised repeatedly to defend Republika Srpska's autonomy.

Serb voters see him as "the true defender of Serb national interests and the preservation of Republika Srpska," Topic said.