Bosnia will head to the polls on Sunday to take part in the general election after a campaign season marked by threats of secession, political infighting and fears of future unrest as ethnic tensions rise in the country.

Voters will cast their ballots in a dizzying array of contests, including for the three members of Bosnia’s tripartite presidency, deputies to the central parliament and a number of local races.

Polling stations will open at 7:00 a.m. local time (5:00 GMT).

Nearly three decades after war devastated the Balkan country, Bosnia continues to be weighed down by its ethnic divisions.

The Balkan state was governed by a dysfunctional administrative system created by the 1995 Dayton Accords, which successfully ended the war in the 1990s but largely failed to provide a framework for the country’s political development.

Bosnia remains divided between a Serbian entity – the Republika Srpska (RS) – and a Muslim-Croat federation linked by a weak central government.

After the war, ethnic political parties have long exploited the country’s divisions to stay in power.

Ahead of Sunday’s vote, the country was torn between secessionist Orthodox Serbs and Catholic Croats, who called for more autonomy and electoral reforms.

The country’s Muslim Bosniaks will also face the choice of voting for a disparate 11-party coalition seeking to overthrow the rule of the mainstream SDA.

Led by Bakir Izetbegovic – the son of independent Bosnia’s first president – the SDA has largely dominated the country’s political scene for decades.

Many voters say the lack of young candidates with fresh ideas has left them largely uninspired on the eve of the election.

“Most of the candidates who apply are the ones we’ve observed over the past twenty years,” said Sara Djogic, a 21-year-old philosophy student in the capital, Sarajevo.

“There are not many who offer something new,” she added.

With little or no polling data available, analysts say incumbents and nationalist parties that have dominated the post-war political scene are likely to win many of the races.

Bosnian Serb leader Milorad Dodik is seeking his third term as RS President after serving one term in the tripartite presidency.

Over the past year, Dodik has fueled tensions with his frequent calls for Bosnian Serbs to move further away from the country’s central institutions, earning him fresh sanctions from the US in January.

Dodik’s main challenger Jelena Trivic has vowed to crack down on corruption in the RS if she is elected.

“Our revenge will be the law,” said Trivic before the election.

Political unrest is also brewing for the country’s Catholic Croats.

Ahead of the election, many Croatians have called for electoral reforms and the leading nationalist party HDZ has threatened to boycott the contest.

Their grievances are riddled with the Bosniaks’ huge numerical advantage in the Muslim-Croat federation, which has allowed Muslim voters to retain de facto control over who can be elected to lead the Croats at the presidential level.

The HDZ and other Croatian parties have called for the creation of a new mechanism that would allow the community to elect its own representatives to the presidency and the upper house.

However, the move was fiercely opposed by the ruling Bosniak Federation Party.

With threats of new boycotts, fears are growing of potential post-election turmoil if incumbent Croatian co-president Zeljko Komsic – who has been widely reviled by all Croatian parties that see him as a Bosniak proxy – is re-elected.

The ever-present threats and vitriol have prompted some to skip Sunday’s voting booth.

“I don’t expect anything new after these elections. Everything will stay the same,” said Mira Sladojevic, a pensioner in her 70s in Sarajevo.

“I haven’t voted in a long time,” she added.

The first wave of preliminary results is expected a few hours after polling stations close at 19:00 (19:00 GMT).