A Family Affair: Iraqi Kurdistan Names Cousins as New PM, President

Iraqi Kurdistan’s parliament named Masrour Barzani as the region’s new prime minister on Tuesday, taking over the role from his cousin, Nechirvan Barzani, who was sworn in as president the previous day. The prime minister-elect won 87 votes out of the 97 members present in the 111-seat chamber, and now has one month to form a cabinet. He had been serving as the autonomous region’s national security adviser since 2012. The region was without a president since 2017, when Nechirvan Barzani’s uncle, Marsoud, the only other person to have held the position, resigned after 12 years in office following a failed independence bid. The new president was elected last month after his Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) won the region’s parliamentary elections in September. The cousins are members of the KDP, which was founded by their grandfather in 1946 and remains dominated by family members.