Bosnians voted for national, regional and local representatives yesterday in elections dominated by still-unresolved issues of identity and statehood after almost 20 years of peace, and with scant prospect of any genuine change.

Many Bosnians had hoped civil unrest in February might generate enough momentum to oust the political elite, widely seen as corrupt and incapable of reforming a complex system of ethnic power-sharing that ended a 1992-95 war.

However, devastating floods in May helped drown out such hopes and, with few new faces on the ballot papers, political analysts predict more of the usual policy paralysis and neglect of the bread-and-butter issues that matter to ordinary Bosnians.

“I didn’t vote for anyone; they’re all the same. I just came to cast an empty ballot so they can’t misuse it,” said Sarajevo pensioner Saima Alajbegovic.

Anger over corruption and unemployment was at the heart of the unprecedented popular unrest in February, when protests over factory closures turned violent and spread to several cities.

I didn’t vote for anyone, they are all the same

But during the election campaign calls for greater focus on jobs, red tape and good governance have mostly gone unheeded.

Instead, stark differences between rival ethnic groups over Bosnia’s future were again on prominent display. Bosnia’s Orthodox Christian Serb leaders want to secede, the Catholic Croats want a separate entity within Bosnia and the Muslim Bosniaks still cling to the vision of a strong unified state. Bosnian Serb leader Milorad Dodik, emboldened by a pro-Russian separatist revolt in eastern Ukraine, has grown louder in his calls for secession of the autonomous Serb Republic from Bosnia.

“I expect these elections to confirm the stability of Serb Republic,” he said after voting. Bakir Izetbegovic, bidding for a new term as the Bosniak member of Bosnia’s tripartite presidency – Serbs and Croats also each have a representative – vowed for the end of divisions.

“It’s high time to end the standstill and I think that politicians have matured enough to come out of this vicious cycle,” he said yesterday.

The state election commission put preliminary turnout figures by 11am at 14.22 per cent, up from 13.48 per cent by the same time in the 2010 vote when the total turnout was 56.6 per cent.

Under its US-brokered postwar settlement, Bosnia is still split into two autonomous regions joined by a weak central government, power split along ethnic lines in a highly decentralised and costly system that frequently paralyses any type of serious decision-making.