[Bokababe]

"The post of head of the collective presidency was never Abdic's to start with - Bosnian voters elected 7 members to the collective presidency, 2 Muslims, 2 Croats, 2 Serbs, and one "other". The members of the collective presidency then caucused and chose their head amongst themselves."

This is what the Sobaka site I posted earlier said:

In Bosnia's federated system, the republic was ruled by a rotating presidency of five members, and the one who received the largest overall number of votes would become its chair. Abdic outscored Izetbegovic rather handily (Abdic received 1,010,618, with a good share of support among Serbs and Croats, to Izetbegovic's 847,386, mostly among Muslims). For reasons which have never been adequately explained, Abdic abstained from taking the head of the presidency, granting it by default to Izetbegovic.

[Hoplite]

Your source is incorrect on two counts

1) The 1990 elections were for a 7 member collective presidency. Results were as follows: Izetbegovic and Abdic from the SDA, Plavsic and Koljevic from the SDS, Kljuljic and Boras from the HDZ, and Ganic, also from the SDA, who ran and was elected as an "Other" candidate.

2) There was nothing in the Bosnian constitution awarding the head of the collective presidency to the winner of the most votes.

When all was said and done, the head of the collective presidency (SDA), the office of prime minister (HDZ), and the presidency of the national assembly (SDS) were divided amongst the three largest parties, making Izetbegovic's position a function of partisan politics, not an anti-Abdic conspiracy.