Hamdija Pozderac

His legacy certainly can be credited with contributions to the constitutional recognition of Muslims (historically revived as Bosniaks in 1993) as a constituent people within Bosnia and Herzegovina, along with the already recognised Croats and Serbs, and his persistent position in protecting those rights. He has also continually worked on protection of the sovereignty of Bosnia and Herzegovina within Yugoslavia and while he did begin some processes for which he would be criticized, many consider that without his involvement in the Yugoslav politics at the time, Bosnia may have not had the political nor other potency to pursue to independence in the 1990s.

Izetbegović would later supersede Pozderac becoming the President of the Presidency of SR Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1990.

Abdić would later join Alija Izetbegović in 1990 to form the Party of Democratic Action (SDA) and win the popular vote for the Presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina in the 1990 Bosnian general election.

Attacks on Pozderac culminated with the "Agrokomerc Affair" that began in 1987. In the 1980s Agrokomerc, one of the leading food manufacturers, was engulfed in questionable banking deals where the corporation issued numerous high interest promissory notes without the proper financial equity. Such practices were reportedly common within the Yugoslav system. The difference with Agrokomerc was that the director of the corporation, Fikret Abdić, lost the sense of scale as the corporation issued in excess of $500 million in "worthless" promissory notes.

The political blow to Pozderac came from Abdić's statement that he was in possession of audio tapes with conversations that would prove Pozderac's involvement in the scandal. While tapes were never actually presented, the political pressure on Pozderac culminated in September 1987, at which point he resigned from politics.

The most controversial process however was the so-called "Sarajevo process" in 1983. The Sarajevo process centered on convicting Alija Izetbegović for having written the Islamic Declaration. Pozderac reaffirmed his political opposition to Serbian nationalism and in particular to the politics of Slobodan Milošević, who was allegedly seeking to revert the constitutional amendments of the 1970s that awarded the Muslims the status of a constituent ethnicity.

He was considered one of the most influential and powerful politicians in Bosnia and Herzegovina during the communist era. His removal from the political scene in the late 1980s is today considered one of the most controversial events that preceded the Bosnian War. Pozderac was removed due to the Agrokomerc Affair of 1987, which the Yugoslav press compared to the American Watergate scandal.

A series of political attacks were reportedly staged against Pozderac by the Serbian lobby in Bosnia who tried to discredit and remove him from the political scene. One attempt was made by Vojislav Šešelj in the early 1980s, who learned that one of the students of Pozderac at the University of Sarajevo plagiarized portions of his dissertation, but was not punished for by Pozderac. Because the student Brano Miljuš was a high-ranking individual within the Communist party, controversy ensued but Šešelj's efforts were ultimately unsuccessful.

Pozderac's politics centered on his involvement in the Communist Party of Yugoslavia that he ideologically followed. He held various high positions in the government of SR Bosnia and Herzegovina and SFR Yugoslavia in the 1970s and 1980s and exerted considerable influence on the politics of the communist party. He was president of the Federal Constitutional Commission of Yugoslavia which he held for nearly 20 years. His political ascendance began with economic revitalization of the Bosanska Krajina region, than impoverished region of SR Bosnia and Herzegovina. Pozderac provided the political backing to Agrokomerc, at the time small local food manufacturer which would later become one of the largest food manufacturing corporations in the former Yugoslavia. Agrokomerc proved to be the key to the economic prosperity of the region.

While his primary goal was economic reform of then impoverished SR Bosnia and Herzegovina, which he relatively successfully implemented, Pozderac also played an important role in confronting nationalists from Serbia through a series of controversial and risky political moves. The reason he is today considered one of the most important Bosnian politicians is his significant role in constitutional amendments in the 1970s which recognized Bosnian Muslims as one of the constituent ethnic groups of SR Bosnia and Herzegovina and SFR Yugoslavia. Although his political orientation was left of center, and while he continually confronted nationalist politics of ethnic groups in former Yugoslavia, Pozderac inevitably contributed to the establishment of the process that led to the emergence of the modern Bosniak nation.

Hamdija Pozderac (15 January 1924 – 7 April 1988) was a Yugoslav communist politician from Bosnia and Herzegovina. He was the 4th President of the People's Assembly of the Socialist Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina from July 1971 to May 1974. Pozderac was also the 3rd Member of the Presidency of Yugoslavia for SR Bosnia and Herzegovina from 15 May 1986 until 15 September 1987 and the 1st President of the League of Communists of Bosnia and Herzegovina from 23 May 1982 to 28 May 1984. He was forced to resign from politics due to a corruption scandal in September 1987.