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All 37 seats for the Nineveh Governorate council | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Turnout | 60% ( 43%) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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The Nineveh Governorate election of 2009 was held on 31 January 2009 alongside elections for all other governorates outside Iraqi Kurdistan and Kirkuk Governorate.
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All 37 seats for the Nineveh Governorate council | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Turnout | 60% (43%) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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The Nineveh Governorate election of 2009 was held on 31 January 2009 alongside elections for all other governorates outside Iraqi Kurdistan and Kirkuk Governorate.
 | This section needs expansion. You can help by adding to it. (January 2009) |
Three seats on the council have been reserved for religious minorities: one for Christians, one for Yazidis and one for Shabak. [1]
In May 2008, arrest warrants were issued against a number of KDP council members who were accused of involvement in an assassination ring headed by the deputy leader of the KDP. The ring allegedly assassinated 900 people including a prominent Imam, two former senior officials of the Baath party, doctors and university professors. They were also accused of funnelled money and logistical help to al Qaeda in Iraq, in order to persuade the predominantly Arab residents to turn over security to the Kurdish Peshmerga. [2]
The main contest in Ninawa was between the incumbent Kurdish-backed governor and the al-Hadba party, formed by Sunni Arab tribal groups and backed by the Shiite Prime Minister, Nouri al-Maliki. [3] During the campaign the pro-Kurdish governor, Duraid Kashmoula, said he intended to leave Mosul, the city of his birth, after the election and retire to Kurdistan. [4]
Al-Hadba complained of being targeted by Kurdish security forces. [5] They accused the Kurdish parties of fraud in the 2005 election and, together with other non-Kurdish groups asked for federal troops to UN monitors to protect the voting centres. [6] A candidate for the Sunni Arab "Iraq for Us" coalition was killed by a gunman who walked into a cafe and shot him. [5] Just before the election another Sunni Arab candidate, this time from the National Unity List, was killed outside his home in Mosul. [7]
Al-Hadba called for the removal of Kurdish peshmerga forces from Ninawa, saying many of the province's insurgent groups would become law-abiding after that. [8] The Iraqi Islamic Party said the peshmerga should be replaced by the Iraqi Army within six months. [9]
Usama al-Najafi, a member of the Council of Representatives of Iraq and a supporter of the al-Hadba party, claimed that they had won 60% of the vote, with the Kurdish list gaining only 20%. [10]
After the election, reports claimed that Assyrians had been fired from their jobs because they were suspected of not voting for the pro-Kurdish Ishtar Patriotic List, which won the seat reserved for an Assyrian candidate. [11]
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| Party | Votes | % | Seats | +/– | |
| Al Hadba National List | 435,595 | 43.77 | 19 | +19 | |
| Kurdistan Alliance | 273,458 | 27.48 | 12 | −19 | |
| Iraqi Islamic Party | 60,191 | 6.05 | 3 | +1 | |
| Al Mihrab Martyr List | 17,915 | 1.80 | 0 | −5 | |
| Ishtar Patriotic List | 13,760 | 1.38 | 1 | +1 | |
| Reserved Shabak seat | 12,949 | 1.30 | 1 | +1 | |
| Reserved Yazidi seat | 6,174 | 0.62 | 1 | +1 | |
| National Rafidain List | 6,144 | 0.62 | 0 | −1 | |
| Other parties | 168,983 | 16.98 | 0 | – | |
| Total | 995,169 | 100.00 | 37 | −4 | |
| Source: Niqash, [12] Al Sumaria, New York Times | |||||
Nineveh or Ninawa Governorate is a governorate in northern Iraq. It has an area of 37,323 km2 (14,410 sq mi) and an estimated population of 2,453,000 people as of 2003. Its largest city and provincial capital is Mosul, which lies across the Tigris river from the ruins of ancient Nineveh. Before 1976, it was called Mosul Province and included the present-day Dohuk Governorate. The second largest city is Tal Afar, which has an almost exclusively Turkmen population.
Human rights in post-invasion Iraq have been the subject of concerns and controversies since the 2003 U.S. invasion. Concerns have been expressed about conduct by insurgents, the U.S.-led coalition forces and the Iraqi government. The U.S. is investigating several allegations of violations of international and internal standards of conduct in isolated incidents by its own forces and contractors. The UK is also conducting investigations of alleged human rights abuses by its forces. War crime tribunals and criminal prosecution of the numerous crimes by insurgents are likely years away. In late February 2009, the U.S. State Department released a report on the human rights situation in Iraq, looking back on the prior year (2008).
The Peshmerga comprise the standing military of Kurdistan Region, an autonomous political entity within the Republic of Iraq. According to the Constitution of Iraq, the Peshmerga and their security subsidiaries are solely responsible for the security of Kurdistan Region, chiefly due to the fact that the Iraqi Armed Forces are forbidden to enter Iraqi Kurdistan. These subsidiaries 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.
Iraqi Assyrians are an ethnic and linguistic minority group, indigenous to Upper Mesopotamia. Assyrians in Iraq are those Assyrians still residing in the country of Iraq, and those in the Assyrian diaspora who are of Iraqi-Assyrian heritage. They share a common history and ethnic identity, rooted in shared linguistic, cultural and religious traditions, with Assyrians in Iran, Assyrians in Turkey and Assyrians in Syria, as well as with the Assyrian diaspora. Assyrian diaspora in Detroit, Areas with large expat populations include Chicago and Sydney.
Kurdistan Region is an autonomous administrative entity within the Republic of Iraq. It comprises four Kurdish-majority divisions of Arab-majority Iraq: the Erbil Governorate, the Sulaymaniyah Governorate, the Duhok Governorate, and Halabja Governorate. The KRI is bordered by Iran to the east, by Turkey to the north, and by Syria to the west. It does not govern all of Iraqi Kurdistan, and lays claim to the disputed territories of northern Iraq; these territories have a predominantly non-Arab population and were subject to the Ba'athist Arabization campaigns throughout the late 20th century. Though the KRI's autonomy was realized in 1992, one year after Iraq's defeat in the Gulf War, these northern territories remain contested between the Kurdistan Regional Government and the Government of Iraq to the present day. In light of the dispute, the KRI's constitution declares the city of Kirkuk as the capital of Iraqi Kurdistan. However, the KRI does not control Kirkuk, and the Kurdistan Region Parliament is based in Erbil. In 2014, when the Syria-based Islamic State began their Northern Iraq offensive and invaded the country, the Iraqi Armed Forces retreated from most of the disputed territories. The KRI's Peshmerga then entered and took control of them for the duration of the War in Iraq (2013–2017). In October 2017, following the defeat of the Islamic State, the Iraqi Armed Forces attacked the Peshmerga and reasserted control over the disputed territories.
Osama Abdul Aziz al-Nujaifi or Najifi is an Iraqi politician and served as one of the three vice presidents of the country, from 2014 to 2015 and 2016 to 2018. As the speaker of the Council of Representatives, the informal leader of the moderate Sunni al-Hadba party was the highest ranking Sunni politician of Iraq.
The Christians of Iraq are considered to be one of the oldest continuous Christian communities in the world.
Governorate or provincial elections were held in Iraq on 31 January 2009, to replace the local councils in fourteen of the eighteen governorates of Iraq that were elected in the 2005 Iraqi governorate elections. 14,431 candidates, including 3,912 women, contested 440 seats. The candidates came from over 400 parties, 75% of which were newly formed.
Parliamentary elections were held in Iraq on 7 March 2010. The elections decided the 325 members of the Council of Representatives who would elect the prime minister and president. The elections resulted in a partial victory for the Iraqi National Movement, led by former Interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi, which won 91 seats, making it the largest alliance in the Council. The State of Law Coalition, led by incumbent Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki, was the second largest grouping with 89 seats.
2008 attacks on Christians in Mosul was a series of attacks which targeted Iraqi Christians in Mosul, Iraq. The Christians of Mosul, who were already targeted during the Iraq War, left the city en masse heading to Assyrian villages in Nineveh Plains and Iraqi Kurdistan. Both Sunni extremists, and Kurdish Peshmerga were blamed for the attacks.
The al-Hadba party is a political party formed to contest the 2009 Iraqi governorate elections in Ninawa province. It is mostly made up of Sunni Arabs. Its leading member Atheel al-Nujaifi is brother of Usama al-Najafi who is part of the Iraqi National List led by former Iraqi Prime Minister, Ayad Allawi. It has also been reported that members of the coalition have the backing of Shiite Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.
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 Chaldean Syriac Assyrian Popular Council, popularly known as Motwa, is a political party in Iraq, that was founded in 2007, on the initiative of Sarkis Aghajan, a high-ranking member of the Kurdistan Democratic Party. As a party that represents minority communities, CSAPC participated in several elections, both on national, regional and local levels, mainly in various coalitions with other minority parties. The current president of the party is Jameel Zaito.
The Kurdistan Democratic Party, usually abbreviated as KDP or PDK, is the largest 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 Iraqi–Kurdish conflict consists of a series of wars, rebellions and disputes by the Kurds against the central authority of Iraq starting in the 20th century shortly after the defeat of the Ottoman Empire in World War I. Some put the marking point of the conflict beginning to the attempt by Mahmud Barzanji to establish an independent Kingdom of Kurdistan, while others relate to the conflict as only the post-1961 insurrection by the Barzanis. Since the US-led invasion of Iraq and the subsequent recognition of the Kurdistan Region the number and scope of armed clashes between the central government of Iraq and the Kurds have significantly decreased. In spite of that, however, there are still outstanding issues that continue to cause strife such as the disputed territories of northern Iraq and rights to oil and gas, leading to occasional armed clashes.
Since the early 20th century several proposals have been made for the establishment of an autonomous area or an independent state for the Syriac-speaking modern Assyrians in northern Iraq.
The disputed territories of northern Iraq are regions defined by article 140 of the Constitution of Iraq as being Arabised during Baath Party rule in Iraq. Most of these regions are inhabited by non-Arabs, including Kurds, Assyrians, Yazidis, Turkmens/Turkomans, and Shabaks.
The 2013 Nineveh Governorate election in Iraq was held on 20 June with elections for the Al Anbar Governorate. Due to security problems, turnout was less than half that of the 2009 election. This election saw Sunni Arab parties lose a number of seats to minority parties.
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The 2017 Iraqi–Kurdish conflict, also known as the Kirkuk crisis, was a conflict in which the Iraqi government retook disputed territories in Iraq which had been held by the Peshmerga since ISIL's Northern Iraq offensive in 2014. The conflict began on 15 October 2017 after tensions arising from the Kurdistan Region independence referendum of 25 September. The tension between the federal Iraqi government and Kurdistan Region escalated into conflict when the Peshmerga ignored repeated warnings to return Kirkuk to Iraqi government forces. Part of the conflict was the Battle of Kirkuk, when Iraqi forces routed Peshmerga forces from the city in a surprise dawn-offensive, marking the beginning of clashes.
