SARAJEVO, Oct 9: Bosnian Muslim parties have swept to victory in municipal elections in the eastern town of Srebrenica which fell to Serb forces amid a massacre of Muslim men two years ago, Western officials said, reports Reuter.

The Muslim parties won a majority of seats on the Town Council after receiving the support of Muslim refugees from the area who cast ballots from elsewhere in Bosnia and abroad, the officials said on Wednesday

The Bosnian Serb army has executed or ambushed thousands of Muslim men fleeing Srebrenica in 1995 in what human rights officials called Europe's worst atrocity since World War II

A Muslim victory was expected in Srebrenica after registration figures showed absentee Muslim voters outnumbered Serbs who had moved to the area

The Western officials confirmed Serb media reports that the Muslim coalition for a

united and ctemocratic Bosnia Herzegovina had won 24 seats out of i total of 46 on the council An independent Muslim candidate won one seat.

The nationalist Serb Democratic Party had 12 seats and its ally, the Serbian Radical Party, won nine seats.

The result in Srebrenica meant that it was the only municipality in Serb controlled territory where Muslim parties managed to secure a majority in last month's local elections across the former Yugoslav Republic.

Muslim parties won a plurality of the vote in the northwest town of Prijedor but Serb parties could control the council if they agree to form a coalition.

Political analysts say implementing the results in Sre-orenica and elsewhere may prove impossible because local nationalist authorities oppose reversing the results of territorial conquest and "ethnic cleansing .