| Post: | President |
| Body: | Kurdistan Region |
| Insignia: | Seal of the President of the Kurdistan Region.svg |
| Insigniasize: | 120px |
| Insigniacaption: | Seal of the President |
| Flag: | Flag of the President of the Kurdistan Region.svg |
| Flagsize: | 120px |
| Flagcaption: | Flag of the President |
| Incumbent: | Nechirvan Barzani |
| Incumbentsince: | 10 June 2019 |
| Style: | His Excellency |
| Deputy: | Vice President of Kurdistan Region |
| Appointer: | elected in KRG parliament (if possible) |
| Termlength: | Four years, renewable once |
| Formation: | 4 July 1992 14 June 2005 |
The President of Kurdistan Region is the head of semi-autonomous Kurdistan Region in northern Iraq. They are part of the Kurdistan Presidency Council.[1] The current President of Kurdistan Region is Nechirvan Barzani, who assumed office on 10 June 2019.[2]
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).[3] 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 President.[3]
| width=50% valign=top | PUK-controlled partPresident of the PUK-run Kurdistan Regional Government:[4] | width=50% valign=top | KDP-controlled partPresident of the KDP-run Kurdistan Regional Government: |
After an official reconciliation between the KDP and PUK in October 2002,[5] parliamentary elections were held on 30 January 2005 and on 14 June 2005 the KDP-leader Masoud Barzani was sworn in by the parliament in as new president and Kosrat Rasul Ali as the new Vice President of Kurdistan Region.[6] In 2009 the system was changed to elect the president and on 25 July 2009 presidential election were held resulting in Barzani's re-election.[7] On 29 October 2017, amidst the 2017 Iraqi–Kurdish conflict, Barzani announced his intentions to step down as president, effective 1 November.[8]
President of Kurdistan Region:
| Portrait | Name | Term of office | Political party | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Took office | Left office | Time in office | |||||
| 1 | Masoud Barzani | 14 June 2005 | 1 November 2017 | Kurdistan Democratic Party | |||
| 2 | Nechirvan Barzani | 10 June 2019 | Incumbent | Kurdistan Democratic Party | |||
See main article: 2009 Kurdistan Region presidential election.
| Candidate | Popular votes | Percentage | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Massoud Barzani | 1,266,397 | 69.6 | |
| 460,323 | 25.3 | ||
| Halow Ibrahim Ahmed | 63,377 | 3.5 | |
| Ahmed Mohammed Rasul | 18,890 | 1.4 | |
| Hussein Garmiyani | 10,665 | 0.6 | |
| Total | 1,819,652 https://web.archive.org/web/20120322105611/http://www.knowkurdistan.com/features/democratic_progress_election.html | 100% |