Dr. Haval Abubakir is the Governor of Sulaymaniyah, a position he has held since December 2017, having first been elected to the role by the Sulaymaniyah Provincial Council in 2016. Born in Halabja in 1971, he holds a PhD in Modern Literature and Journalism from Sulaimani University (2010) and is an Assistant Professor in Modern Literature and Journalistic Sciences.
Before entering government, he built a long career in Kurdish media and academia, working as a journalist with Kurdistani Nwe Daily and Kurdistan Region Newspaper, editor-in-chief of Rayan Magazine, and a lecturer at Sulaimani University across its Media, Political Sciences, and Kurdish departments. He was a founding member of the Kurdistan Journalists Syndicate and of Amnesty International in Kurdistan, and is a longtime member of the International Federation of Journalists.

Politically, he rose through the Change Movement (Gorran), becoming a member of the Sulaymaniyah Provincial Council in 2014 and its head from 2014 to 2016, before being elected Governor. As Governor, he has represented Sulaymaniyah internationally, including at the Covenant of Mayors for Climate and Energy in Brussels and the Kuwait Conference for the Reconstruction of Iraq. He is also a published author of poetry and journalistic studies, with numerous works on media and Kurdish literature to his name.