Mahmut Bakalli[a] (19 January 1936 – 14 April 2006) was a KosovoAlbanian politician.[1]
Bakalli began his political career in the youth organization of the League of Communists of Kosovo, eventually becoming its leader in 1961. In 1967, he became head of the party's Prishtina chapter. As he rose through the ranks, he was elected to the Central Committee of the party's Serbian chapter, and to the Presidium of the League of Communists of Yugoslavia's Central Committee.[2]
Bakalli led the Communist Party in Kosovo during the late 1970s and early 1980s, but resigned after disagreeing with the way the 1981 protests by ethnic Albanian students were handled by Kosovo's own police, headed by Rahman Morina. Bakalli then spent two years under house arrest, before being expelled from the party. He was after that allowed to work in the province's Science Association until retirement, but was forced out when Slobodan Milošević increased Serbian control over Kosovo in the late 1980s.[3]
Bakalli succumbed to throat cancer on April 14, 2006, at the age of 70 following a prolonged treatment. He was survived by his wife and three daughters.
