Akayev, Askar (1944-…), became Kyrgyzstan’s first democratically elected president in 1991 after the country declared its independence from the Soviet Union. He was reelected in 1995 and 2000. In 2005, he was forced to resign as president.
As president, Akayev promoted economic development for Kyrgyzstan. He legalized private landownership and sought economic investment from the United States and Western Europe. Akayev encouraged modern secular (nonreligious) values, which aroused opposition from Islamic extremists operating along Kyrgyzstan’s border with Tajikistan.
Akayev also fought corruption, ordering the detention of several government ministers suspected of accepting bribes. But his political opponents accused him of clinging to power after he introduced changes to the 1993 Constitution that allowed him to run for another term as president in the 2000 elections.
In early 2005, widespread antigovernment protests erupted in Kyrgyzstan. The protesters claimed that parliamentary elections held that year had been rigged in favor of supporters of Akayev. The protests began in the south and later spread to Bishkek, the capital, where protesters seized government buildings. Akayev fled to Russia, and opposition leaders formed an interim government. Shortly afterward, Akayev resigned as president.
Akayev was born on Nov. 10, 1944, in the Kyzyl-Bairak Keminsky district of what was then the Kyrgyz Soviet Socialist Republic. In 1968, he graduated from the Leningrad Institute of Precise Mechanics and Optics (now the St. Petersburg State Institute of Fine Mechanics and Optics). He then worked as a university lecturer and professor in physics. From 1976 to 1986, Akayev served as chairman of the Polytechnic Institute in Frunze (now Bishkek), the Kyrgyz capital. In 1986 and 1987, he served as head of the Department for Science and Educational Institutions of the Central Committee of the Kyrgyz Communist Party. From 1987 to 1990, he was at first vice president and then president of the Kyrgyz Academy of Sciences.
In October 1990, Akayev became executive president of the Kyrgyz Communist Party of the Kyrgyz Soviet Socialist Republic. In August 1991, conservative Communist officials failed in an attempt to overthrow Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev. During the upheaval that followed, Kyrgyzstan and several other republics declared their independence. In October 1991, the people of Kyrgyzstan elected Akayev president of their new republic. Akayev suspended the Kyrgyz Communist Party and nationalized (put under state control) its assets.
See also Kyrgyzstan (History) .
