THE international High Representative in Bosnia, Mr Carl Bildt and the US envoy who brokered the Dayton peace agreement both hailed yesterday's election as a success, writes Mark Brennock from Sarajevo.
They were joined in their praise by foreign ministers from Germany, France and Russia.
The level of future international involvement here is seen as the key to determining whether Bosnia will survive as an integrated state. Mr Bildt said that an international consensus on future military involvement in Bosnia is "almost there", and the nature and extent of that involvement will be determined at a series of meetings between now and the end of the year.
There is some speculation that the higher turnout in Serb controlled, areas may result in a Serb becoming head of the three person presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina, defeating the present president, Mr Alija Izetbegovic.
Mr Izetbegovic's party, the SDA, said last night that it will take proceedings to have the poll in Republika Srpska declared invalid.
The party maintains that many of its voters stayed away because they were afraid to enter the Serb area.
The election passed off peacefully apart from a few isolated incidents of violence and obstruction. A grenade was thrown at the house of a Croat election official in Bugojno, western Bosnia on Friday night. On Saturday morning a shot was fired at a municipal building near the Bosnian Serb capital Pale.
In two key towns, Breko and Prijedor, Bosnian Serb police blocked the passage of Muslim voters for a period on Saturday morning.
They were quickly ordered to desist by their superiors, who appeared determined to make the election work, as they believe it will validate their claim to be a Serb state separate from Bosnia.