The Patriotic Union of Kurdistan is a Kurdish nationalist political party in Iraqi Kurdistan. 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 co-leadership of presidents Lahur Talabany and Bafel Talabani. The PUK was founded in 1975 by Jalal Talabani, Nawshirwan Mustafa, Fuad Masum, Adel Murad, Ali Askari and Abdul Razaq Feyli.
The Democratic Patriotic Alliance of Kurdistan (DPAK) sometimes referred to simply as the Kurdistan Alliance (KA) is the name of the electoral coalition first presented as a united Kurdish list in the January 2005 election in Iraq. Elections were held simultaneously for the assembly of Kurdistan Region. The Alliance represents a coalition of the two main Kurdish parties, the Kurdistan Democratic Party and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan
The Kurdistan Islamic Movement is an Islamist group founded in 1987 by Shaykh Uthman Abd-Aziz and several other Sunni mullahs who were all part of the non-political "Union of Religious Scholars". The party's main support comes from in and around that town of Halabjah. In the region controlled by the Islamic Movement in Kurdistan, the party established its own infrastructure but did not seek to apply Sharia law. Sheikh Uthman Abd al-Aziz was appointed as a mufti by the Islamic Movement of Kurdistan.
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.
Kurdistan Islamic Union, colloquially referred to as Yekgirtû, is an Islamist party in Iraqi Kurdistan.
The Kurdistan Region is an autonomous region in northern Iraq comprising the four Kurdish-majority governorates of Dohuk, Erbil, Halabja and Sulaymaniyah and bordering Iran, Syria and Turkey. The Kurdistan Region encompasses most of Iraqi Kurdistan but excludes the disputed territories of Northern Iraq, contested between the Kurdistan Regional Government and the central Iraqi government in Baghdad since Kurdish autonomy was realized in 1992 in the aftermath of the Gulf War. The Kurdistan Region Parliament is situated in Erbil, but the constitution of the Kurdistan Region declares the disputed city of Kirkuk to be the capital of the Kurdistan Region. When the Iraqi Army withdrew from most of the disputed areas in mid-2014 because of the ISIL offensive in Northern Iraq, Kurdish Peshmerga entered the areas and held control there until Iraq retook the areas in October 2017.
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. Barzani was born in the self-declared Republic of Mahabad, and succeeded his father Mustafa Barzani as leader of the KDP in 1979.
The Parliament of Kurdistan-Iraq, also called the Iraqi Kurdistan Parliament (IKP), is the parliament of the Kurdistan Region of Iraq. It is made up of representatives from the various parties, lists or slates that are elected every four years by the inhabitants of the provinces of Kurdistan Region currently governed by the Kurdistan Regional Government. In 2009 an amendment was applied to the Kurdistan Election Law of the year 1992, and since then the body was referred to as Kurdistan Parliament instead of its previous name the Kurdistan National Assembly.
The Iraqi Kurdish Civil War was a military conflict 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 5,000 and 8,000 fighters and civilians were killed.
Assyrian politics in Iraq have been taking many different turns since the US invasion of Iraq 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 Gorran Movement or just Gorran (Change) is a Kurdish political party in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq. Under the leadership of Omar Said Ali, it was founded in 2009 by Nawshirwan Mustafa. Gorran is the third largest party in the Kurdistan Region Parliament.
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 Prime Minister of Kurdistan Region is the head of the Kurdistan Regional Government, governing Kurdistan Region of Iraq. The government is elected as part of the Kurdistan Parliament.
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 4 members of each party.
The Kurdistan Region parliamentary elections of 2013 took place on 21 September 2013. It was the fourth legislative election 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.
The Kurdistan Democratic Solution Party or PÇDK, is a political party active in Iraq's Kurdistan Region, founded in 2002. It is part of the Kurdistan Communities Union (KCK), along with the larger Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK).
Parliamentary elections took place in Kurdistan Region on 30 September 2018 to elect Parliament. The ruling Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) came first in a parliamentary election in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq, winning 45 seats, that positioning it to lead the next regional government. A year after a failed bid for independence, Iraq’s Kurds voted last month in a parliamentary election. 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 the autonomous 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.
The first Rojava regional elections were held on 1 December 2017. Local councils for the Jazira Region, Euphrates Region and Afrin Region were elected as well as for the subordinate cantons, areas and districts of the regions of Rojava. This followed the communal elections that were held on 22 September and will be followed by a federal parliamentary election of the Syrian Democratic Council, the region's highest governing body, initially scheduled for January 2018, but was later postponed.
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.
