The Patriotic Union of Kurdistan is a political party active in Kurdistan Region and the disputed territories in Iraq. The PUK describes its goals as self-determination, human rights, democracy and peace for the Kurdish people of Kurdistan and Iraq. The PUK is currently under the leadership of Bafel Talabani. The PUK was founded in 1975 by Jalal Talabani, Nawshirwan Mustafa, Fuad Masum, Adel Murad, Ali Askari and Abdul Razaq Feyli Dawood Mohammed Ali. All presidents of Iraq under the 2005 constitution have been from this party.
The Peshmerga comprise the internal security forces of Kurdistan Region, a semi-autonomous political entity within the Republic of Iraq. According to the Constitution of Iraq, regional governments are responsible for “the establishment and organization of the internal security forces for the region such as police, security forces, and guards of the region”. Other agencies include Asayish, Parastin û Zanyarî, and Zêrevanî. The Peshmerga's history dates back to the 18th century, when they began as a strictly tribal pseudo-military border guard under the Ottoman Turks and the Safavid Iranians. By the 19th century, they had evolved into a disciplined and well-trained guerrilla force.
Barham Salih is an Iraqi Kurdish politician who served as the eighth president of Iraq from 2018 to 2022.
The Kurdistan Toilers' Party was founded in 1985 by Qadir Ezîz and Ebdulxaliq Zengene as a splinter of the short-lived alliance Kurdistan United Socialist Party (HSYK), which had included the Kurdistan Socialist Democratic Party, the Socialist Movement of Kurdistan and the two splinters of the South Kurdistan Movement. They had belonged to the left wing of the party and had criticized the leadership for abandoning socialism in favor of tribal democracy.
Kurdistan Region (KRI) is a semi-autonomous administrative entity in the Republic of Iraq. It comprises four Kurdish-majority governorates of Arab-majority Iraq: Erbil Governorate, Sulaymaniyah Governorate, Duhok Governorate, and Halabja Governorate. It is located in northern Iraq, which shares borders with Iran to the east, Turkey to the north, and Syria to the west.
Masoud Barzani is a Kurdish politician who has been leader of the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) since 1979, and was President of the Kurdistan Region of Iraq from 2005 to 2017.
The Kurdistan Regional Parliament, also known as Kurdistan Parliament - Iraq, or simply Perleman, is the parliament of the Kurdistan Region in Iraq. It is made up of representatives from the various parties, lists or slates that are elected every four years by the inhabitants of Kurdistan Region, which is currently governed by the Kurdistan Regional Government. In 2009 an amendment was applied to the Kurdistan Election Law of the year 1992, changing the name of the body to Kurdish Parliament from its previous name: the Kurdish National Assembly.
The Iraqi Kurdish Civil War was a civil war that took place between rival Kurdish factions in Iraqi Kurdistan during the mid-1990s, mostly between the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan and the Kurdistan Democratic Party. Over the course of the conflict, Kurdish factions from Iran and Turkey, as well as Iranian, Iraqi and Turkish forces, were drawn into the fighting, with additional involvement from American forces. Between 35,000 and 40,000 fighters and civilians were killed.
Assyrian politics in Iraq have been taking many different turns since the US invasion of the country in 2003. Today, there are many different Assyrian political parties in Iraq. The main Assyrian party that came out from the 2005 elections was the Assyrian Democratic Movement. However, Sarkis Aghajan began to challenge its power beginning in 2006 with the opening of Ishtar TV and the KDP-affiliated Chaldean Syriac Assyrian Popular Council.
The Kurdistan Region parliamentary elections of 2009 took place on 25 July 2009. A total of 2.5 million citizens of Kurdistan Region were eligible to vote for the parliamentary and presidential elections. People currently living outside Kurdistan Region were not allowed to vote. The elections followed the 2005 Kurdistan Region parliamentary election. The parliamentary elections coincided with the direct election of the President of Kurdistan. Unlike the parliamentary elections in 2005, the president of Kurdistan was to be chosen directly through popular votes. A referendum to approve the constitution of Kurdistan Region originally planned for the same day was put back to 1 August.
The Gorran Movement or just Gorran (Change) is a Kurdish political party in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq. The party is led by Dana Ahmed Majid, it was formerly under the leadership of Omar Said Ali, and was founded in 2009 by Nawshirwan Mustafa. Gorran is the sixth largest party in the Kurdistan Region, having lost almost all of its voters (95%) since its foundation, and is now no longer represented in the Iraqi parliament.
The Kurdistan Democratic Party, usually abbreviated as KDP or PDK, is the ruling party in Iraqi Kurdistan and the senior partner in the Kurdistan Regional Government. It was founded in 1946 in Mahabad in Iranian Kurdistan. The party states that it combines "democratic values and social justice to form a system whereby everyone in Kurdistan can live on an equal basis with great emphasis given to rights of individuals and freedom of expression."
The Prime Minister of Kurdistan Region is the head of the Kurdistan Regional Government, governing semi-autonomous Kurdistan Region in northern Iraq. The government is elected as part of the Kurdistan Region Parliament.
The 1983–1986 Kurdish rebellions in Iraq occurred during the Iran–Iraq War as PUK and KDP Kurdish militias of Iraqi Kurdistan rebelled against Saddam Hussein as part of the Iraqi–Kurdish conflict, in an attempt to form an independent state. With Iraqi government forces occupied by the Iran-Iraq War, Kurdish Peshmerga succeeded in taking control of some enclaves, with Iranian logistic and sometimes military support. The initial rebellion resulted in stalemate by 1985.
Parliamentary elections were held in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq on 21 September 2013. They were the fourth parliamentary elections in Kurdistan Region since 1992. The candidates were competing for a total of 111 seats out of which 11 seats were reserved for minorities. According to the Iraqi High Electoral Commission, there were 366 female and 736 male candidates for the elections. A total of 2,653,743 people were eligible to vote throughout the three provinces of Erbil, Sulaymaniyah and Dohuk of which 74% cast their ballots.
Parliamentary elections took place in Kurdistan Region on 30 September 2018 to elect Parliament. The election came a year after a failed bid for independence and left the ruling Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) with 45 seats, that positioning it to lead the next regional government. Announcement of the results was delayed for three weeks. The KDP's historic rival and junior coalition partner in government, the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), was in second place with 21 seats. The results suggest that Masoud Barzani’s KDP will take a dominant position in Kurdish politics.
The President of Kurdistan Region is the head of semi-autonomous Kurdistan Region in northern Iraq. They are part of the Kurdistan Presidency Council. The current President of Kurdistan Region is Nechirvan Barzani, who assumed office on 10 June 2019.
Parliamentary elections were held in Iraq on 12 May 2018. The elections decided the 329 members of the Council of Representatives, the country's unicameral legislature, who in turn will elect the Iraqi president and prime minister. The Iraqi parliament ordered a manual recount of the results on 6 June 2018. On 10 June 2018, a storage site in Baghdad housing roughly half of the ballots from the May parliamentary election caught fire.
The New Generation Movement is a liberal political party in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq, founded by Şaswar Abdulwehîd in 2017. The party was established to contest the 2018 general election.
Hemin Hawrami, ,, is a Kurdish politician, writer and academic. He has been the Deputy Speaker of the Iraqi Kurdistan Parliament since February 2019. He is a senior member of the Kurdistan Democratic Party. He was elected as a Member of the Kurdistan Parliament in September 2018. He was the head of the Kurdistan Democratic Party's foreign relations (2011–2017) and later a senior adviser to President Masoud Barzani (2017–2019) for political and international affairs. He holds a PhD in international relations and he has written eight books in Kurdish on Kurdish politics.
