Kurds keep strong positions in Bagdad
The Kurds are also represented in the Iraqi political life and in the security. The President of Iraq Jalal Talabani is the Kurdish leader of the second main political party in Kurdistan, the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK). Hoshyar Zebari, the Foreign minister of Iraq, and Babaker Baderkhan Shawkat Zebari, Chief of Staff in the Iraqi Joint Forces Army, also are Kurds. Kurdish parties hold 57 seats in the Iraqi national parliament (22%) and several Iraqi Ambassadors are Kurds.
More than 11,000 companies are operating
In addition to the political development, Kurdistan Region has witnessed a real economic boom after 2003. Currently, there are more then 11 000 companies operating in Kurdistan and many foreign investments in the construction and infrastructure sector. The volume of gas and oil exports is constantly increasing and according the Ministry of natural resources it is expected to reach 1 million barrels a day by 2015. Currently 40 international companies from 17 countries are exploring for oil and gas in the Kurdistan Region and the international business interest is constantly growing.
Political transition
Shilan Abduljabar Abdulgani : Despite the fact that Kurds had already some experience with self-rule and transition to democracy before 2003, much of the political and economical progress has been achieved in the last few years after the fall of Saddam Hussein's regime. Shilan Abduljabar Abdulgani, Kurdish young female parliamentarian from PUK, with master degree in political science from Norway, is proud of these successful achievements: “Our Region has been developed in short time as much as some countries would develop for 100 years. Today we have Government, President and Parliament elected by the people and multi-party political system with opposition, which plays important role. We also have over 800 media and many tens of NGOs working actively for the democratisation of the society”.
The first directly elected parliament of Kurdistan Region has been established in 1992 after the Kurdish uprising (1991) and the withdrawal of the Iraqi administrative institutions from Kurdistan. The Kurdish parliamentarians moved to the former 6-floors building of the Iraqi controlled authorities in the centre of Erbil. Today the Kurdish parliament still holds its meetings in the same building, but projects for new House of the Kurdish Parliament will be soon considered. The Parliament is facing the huge Sami Rahman Park built on the former site of one of Saddam’s detention centres. The Park is named after the KRG Deputy Prime Minister Sami Abdulrahman, who was killed alongside with 100 other people in Islamic terrorist attack in 2004 during the Islamic holidays.
Zagros Ahmed Kamal, responsible for the media relations of the Parliament, underlines the importance of the gender equality in the Kurdistan Assembly: "After the elections in 2009, out of 111 members, 39 are women. The legal requirement is that at least 30% of the parliamentarians in Kurdistan are women". Just for comparison, on European Union's level, women make up only 35% of the members of the European Parliament and 33% of the European Commission...
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