Barham Salih: PUK's candidate for Iraq's President position

Iraq 11:28 AM - 2022-01-24

The Leadership Council of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) affirmed on Sunday that they support Barham Salih as PUK's candidate for the post of the President of Iraq.

The Leadership Council of the PUK also confirmed that the position of the President of Iraq is among the entitlements of the Kurds and the PUK, which will not be compromised, and announced in a communiqué issued after its meeting held in the city of Slemani, the nomination of Dr. Barham Ahmed Salih for the position of Presidency of the Republic of Iraq for a second term.

Who is Barham Ahmed Salih?

Barham Ahmed Saleh was born in the city of Slemani on September 12, 1960. He worked as a leader in the ranks of the PUK, to which he belonged since he was a student. He served as the ninth president of Iraq since October 2, 2018.

He is an Iraqi-Kurdish politician who held several government positions previously. He served as Prime Minister of the Kurdistan Region twice, Deputy Prime Minister of Iraq, and was also former Iraqi Minister of Planning. 

Salih was born into an educated and well-off family as his father was a judge. The authorities arrested him twice in 1979 during the Baath regime rule in Iraq on charges of belonging to the “Kurdish Liberation Movement.” He spent 43 days in security detention centers and was tortured. He took his high school exams while in prison and graduated with distinction, ranking first in Kurdistan and third in Iraq, with an average grade of 96.5%. He left Iraq for the United Kingdom to complete his studies after his release.

Qualifications

He holds a BA in Civil Engineering from Cardiff University in 1983.
Ph.D. in statistics and engineering applications in computers from the University of Liverpool in 1987.

Political Biography

With his political activities and his preoccupation with the cause of his people, he secretly joined the ranks of the PUK in 1976 and then became a member of the PUK's European organizations and head of the PUK's foreign relations office in the British capital - London.

He was elected as a member of the leadership of the PUK in the party’s first conference in 1992 and was assigned the task of managing the office of the PUK in the United States. He also became the representative of the first government of the Kurdistan Region in the United States. He had a prominent role in publicizing the cause of the Kurds and the suffering of the Iraqi people in decision-making circles.

Government Biography

He launched the initiative of the International Covenant with Iraq, which was a charter of mutual commitments between Iraq and the international community aimed at helping Iraq advance the situation of the security, political, economic, and social sectors and helping Iraq get rid of its debts due to the policies of the former regime.

He founded the American University of Iraq - Sulaymaniyah and is currently the Chairman of its Board of Trustees.

He has activities in the cultural field and supporting civil society, where he chaired the Board of Trustees of the Iraqi Forum, which is an Iraqi democratic forum that includes national and cultural figures and notables from the spectrum of Iraqi society.

He was nominated by the Kurdish leadership as head of the Kurdistan List, which won the legislative elections in the Kurdistan Region in 2009, and was assigned to form the sixth portfolio of the Kurdistan Regional Government, where he held the position of Prime Minister of the Region from October 2009 to 2011. He has adopted an ambitious program and many initiatives since taking over the position, and among these initiatives is the launch of a program to provide scholarships to students of the region to study in discreet international universities, support the housing fund, establish new universities, grant industrial loans, increase the salaries of the families of martyrs and people and legal regulation for the work of civil society organizations and others.

Dr. Barham Ahmed Salih enjoys extensive Kurdistan, Iraqi, regional, and international relations, being a moderate politician and open to all political currents in the country. He enjoys a network of great relations with the media and cultural community. He also has many activities in the global political, cultural, and economic forums.

Positions he held

He held the position of Prime Minister of Kurdistan Regional Government for the period from January 2001 until mid-2004.

After the fall of the Baath Party regime in Iraq, he assumed the position of Deputy Prime Minister in the Iraqi Interim Government in 2004.

Minister of Planning in the Iraqi Transitional Government in 2005 and Deputy Prime Minister in the first elected government in 2006, where he assumed the task of the economic file as head of the Economic Committee.

An engineering consultant in one of the consulting companies in the United Kingdom.

Presidency

On October 2, 2018, the Council of Representatives voted for Barham Ahmed Salih to assume the position of President of the Republic of Iraq, after obtaining 219 votes.

He was sworn in as President of Iraq on October 2, 2018.

His personal life

He is married to Sarbakh Salih, president of the Plant Diversity Association in the Kurdistan Region and an activist in the field of defending women's rights, and they have a son and a daughter.

He is fluent in Arabic, English, and Kurdish.



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