(ANSA-AFP) - SARAJEVO, 16 NOV - Bosnia's ruling Muslim and Serb nationalists suffered setbacks in the country's two largest cities in weekend local elections, a result analysts said Monday heralds change in the ethnically-split nation. Bosnia, one of Europe's poorest countries, has remained deeply divided along ethnic lines since the end of its 1990s war. Muslim and Serb hardliners maintained their respective grasps on power in capital Sarajevo and the northern town of Banja Luka, populated mainly by ethnic Serbs. But in Sunday's vote a motley coalition of right-wingers and progressives defeated the main Muslim Party of Democratic Action (SDA) in three out of four Sarajevo boroughs.

"This is the beginning of a new Bosnia-Herzegovina ... in which most people in this country want to live," said Srdjan Mandic, of the multi-ethnic Nasa Stranka ("Our Party"), who won in central Sarajevo. In the Serb-run Rebublika Srpska, the mayoralty of its capital Banja Luka was claimed by Drasko Stanivukovic, a right-winger and fierce critic of the Alliance of Independent Social Democrats (SNSD) of Bosnian Serb leader Milorad Dodik. (ANSA-AFP).