| Prime Minister of Kurdistan Region | |
|---|---|
 Political Emblem | |
| Appointer | Kurdistan Region Parliament |
| Term length | Four years, renewable |
| Inaugural holder | Fuad Masum (de facto) Nechirvan Barzani (de jure) |
| Formation | 4 July 1992 (de facto) 1 March 2006 (de jure) |
| Website | www |
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. [1]
After the 1992 parliamentary election resulted in the two main parties, the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), each holding 50 out of 100 seats, they decided to create a unity government (which was not recognized by the Ba'athist Iraq, led by Saddam Hussein). [2]
The unity government soon collapsed and in 1994 a civil war broke out, which lasted until 1998. This resulted in the establishment of two Kurdistan Regional Governments in 1996, a KDP-controlled one in Erbil and a PUK-controlled one in Sulaymaniyah, each with their own prime minister. [2]
PUK-controlled partPrime Ministers of the PUK-controlled Kurdistan Regional Government: [3]
| KDP-controlled partPrime Ministers of the KDP-controlled Kurdistan Regional Government: [3]
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After the reconciliation between the KDP and PUK, parliamentary election was held on January 30, 2005, and an agreement was made to let a KDP leader become prime minister for the first term and a PUK Prime Minister to become president for the second term, so Nechervan Barzani became prime minister. Barham Salih held the post of prime minister until 17 January 2012 after which he relinquished his position to Nechervan Idris Barzani. [4]
Prime Ministers of Kurdistan Regional Government:
| No. | Portrait | Name (Birth–Death) | Term of office | Political party | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Took office | Left office | Time in office | ||||
| 1 |  | Nechirvan Barzani (born 1966) | 1 March 2006 | 31 August 2009 | 3 years, 183 days | Kurdistan Democratic Party |
| 2 |  | Barham Salih (born 1960) | 1 September 2009 | 17 January 2012 | 2 years, 138 days | Patriotic Union of Kurdistan |
| (1) | | Nechirvan Barzani (born 1966) | 17 January 2012 | 10 June 2019 | 7 years, 144 days | Kurdistan Democratic Party |
| 3 |  | Masrour Barzani (born 1969) | 10 June 2019 [5] | Incumbent | 5 years, 118 days | Kurdistan Democratic Party |
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|---|
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 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.
Barham Salih is an Iraqi Kurdish politician who served as the eighth president of Iraq from 2018 to 2022.
Nechirvan Idris Barzani is a Kurdish politician serving as the second President of the Kurdistan Region. He was elected into office by the Kurdistan Region Parliament in June 2019. Nechirvan Barzani was appointed as Vice President of the Kurdistan Democratic Party since 2010. He previously served as Prime Minister of the Kurdistan Regional Government from March 2007 to August 2009 and March 2012 to May 2019. Nechirvan Barzani is also the founder of the University Of Kurdistan Hewlêr, the region's top ranking university located in Erbil.
The Kurdistan Islamic Movement is a Kurdish Islamist party founded in 1987 by mufti Osman Abdulaziz and several other Kurdish Islamic scholars who were all part of the non-political "Union of Religious Scholars" group. The party's main support comes from in and around the town of Halabja.
On 19 May 1992 elections were held to the Kurdistan National Assembly, the parliament of the Kurdistan Region in Iraq. At the time, the National Assembly had 105 seats, of which 5 were reserved for the Assyrian community. Parties had to achieve more than 7% of the vote to be elected. There were 178 polling stations around the region.
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.
The Kurdistan List, also known as the Kurdistan Alliance or the Brotherhood List, is the name of the electoral coalition that ran in the Kurdistan Regional Government parliamentary elections in Iraqi Kurdistan in July 2009. The Kurdistan List represented a coalition of the two main ruling parties in Iraqi Kurdistan, namely the Kurdistan Democratic Party and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan. It is the successor of the Democratic Patriotic Alliance of Kurdistan.
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."
Nawshirwan Mustafa was an Iraqi Kurdish politician who served as the General Coordinator of the Movement for Change and the leader of the opposition in the Kurdistan Region from 1 April 2009 to his death on 19 May 2017.
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.
On May 19, 1992, both Presidential elections and 1992 Kurdistan Region parliamentary election were held. During the first-round presidential elections Kurdistan Democratic Party leader Massoud Barzani won slightly more votes than his main rival Jalal Talabani, the leader of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, however neither won a majority of votes, which was required to become president. Due to both leaders fearing they might lose in a run-off, the second round was never held and the Kurdistan Regional Government decided to move on without a president. Instead they established an 8-man Presidency Council consisting of four members of each party.
The Iraqi–Kurdish conflict consists of a series of wars, rebellions and disputes between the Kurds and 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.
The PUK insurgency was a low-level rebellion of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) against Baathist Iraq from 1975 to 1979, following the defeat of the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) in the Second Iraqi–Kurdish War, which forced that organization to declare a ceasefire and move into exile in Iran. Due to lack of foreign support, the PUK guerrillas were only able to operate in the most remote parts of the mountains of Iraqi Kurdistan. During this period, the PUK plunged into a political crisis with the KDP, which led to heavy intra-Kurdish warfare, climaxing in 1977. After the insurgency, the PUK entered into an alliance with Iranian forces during the Iran–Iraq War, and were backed by Iran in the Kurdish rebellion of 1983.
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.
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.
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link){{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)| PUK-controlled (1992–2005) |  | |
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| KDP-controlled (1996–2005) | ||
| Iraqi Kurdistan | ||
