Kurdish leader Jalal Talabani (pictured) was elected by the National Assembly as the first non-Arab president of Iraq.

Kurds, or the Kurdish people, are an Iranic ethnic group from West Asia. They are indigenous to Kurdistan, which is a geographic region spanning southeastern Turkey, northwestern Iran, northern Iraq, and northeastern Syria. Consisting of 30–45 million people, the global Kurdish population is largely concentrated in Kurdistan, but significant communities of the Kurdish diaspora exist in parts of West Asia beyond Kurdistan and in parts of Europe, most notably including: Turkey's Central Anatolian Kurds, as well as Istanbul Kurds; Iran's Khorasani Kurds; the Caucasian Kurds, primarily in Azerbaijan and Armenia; and the Kurdish populations in various European countries, namely Germany, France, Sweden, and the Netherlands.

Jalal Talabani was an Iraqi Kurdish politician who served as the president of Iraq from 2005 to 2014, as well as the president of the Governing Council of Iraq.

The Council of Representatives is the de facto unicameral legislature of Iraq. According to the Constitution of Iraq, it is the lower house of the bicameral legislature of the country. As of 2020, it comprises 329 seats and meets in Baghdad inside the Green Zone.

The president of the Republic of Iraq is the head of state of Iraq. Since the mid-2000s, the presidency is primarily a symbolic office, as the position does not possess significant power within the country according to the constitution adopted in October 2005.