Muhammad Fuad Masum (born 1938) was the President of Iraq from 2014, succeeding Jalal Talabani.
Biography[]
Masum was born in Koya, Iraq in 1938 to a Kurdish family. Studying sharia at Baghdad University, he later went to Al-Azhar University in Cairo, Egypt in 1958 to complete his higher education. Masum became a member of the Iraqi Communist Party from 1962 to 1964, but after finding out Khalid Bakdash's attitudes against Kurds, he joined the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP). He represented the Kurdish Revolution in Cairo until 1975, when he earned his PHD in Islamic philosophy. In 1976, Masum founded the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) and from 1992 to 1993 he was Prime Minister of Kurdistan, but later became the President of Iraq in 2014 after gaining 21 parliamentary votes over 17 votes for rival Barham Salih.
As President of Iraq, he noted that he had to meet several tasks such as a non-sectarian government and more security.