Nexhip Draga

Nexhip Draga (Turkish: Necıp Draga; 1867-1920) was an Albanian politician.

Nexhip Draga was born in 1867 in Mitroviça (now Mitrovica), then a town of the Ottoman Empire. His father was Ali Pasha Draga, a notable local of Mitroviça who owned lands in the Sanjak of Novi Pazar. He finished his elementary studies in his home town before going to Constantinople, where he studied at an idadiye school and the Mekteb-i Mülkiye (modern Ankara University). Apart from Albanian Draga spoke and wrote French, Turkish, Serbian and Bulgarian.

He completed his administrative studies in Üsküp (Skopje), Monastir Province. From 1896 to 1902 he was kaymakam (sub-governor) at Kratovo, Yeni Pazar (Novi Pazar) and Köprülü (Veles). In Skopje he was one of the leaders of the Committee of Union and Progress. In 1908 through the Albanian assembly of Ferizoviç (Uroševac) he supported the constitutionalist movement. The same year, during the Second Constitutional Era of the Ottoman Empire, he was elected deputy for Skopje, Monastir Province. Along with Ismail Qemali, Hasan Prishtina and Shahin Kolonja he was a member of the group of deputies promoting Albanian issues in the Ottoman parliament and opposing the Young Turks.