Learn More About Physics

Askar Akayev was elected president of Kyrgyzstan in the country’s first presidential elections in 1991. He won a third term in 2000, but mass protests in 2005 forced him to flee the country and resign.
Askar A. Akayev, born in 1944, president of Kyrgyzstan from 1991 to 2005. Askar Akayevich Akayev was born in the town of Kyzyl-Bayrak in Kyrgyzstan, which was then the Kirgiz Soviet Socialist Republic (SSR) within the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR). He was educated as a physicist and spent 20 years in Leningrad (now Saint Petersburg, Russia), where he graduated with honors from the Institute of Precision Engineering and Optics. Akayev joined the Communist Party in 1981, and in 1984 he became a corresponding member of the USSR Academy of Sciences. He was selected to the vice presidency of the Kirgiz SSR Academy of Sciences in 1987, and he became the academy’s president in 1989. In 1991 he became a member of the USSR Supreme Soviet Committee on Economic Reform.
During a wave of liberalizing political reforms initiated by the leader of the USSR, Mikhail Gorbachev, Akayev was indirectly elected to the Kirgiz SSR’s newly created post of president in 1990. The republic’s parliament elected him largely because he was a liberal academic who had worked only briefly in the Communist Party apparatus. When Communist hardliners attempted a coup against Gorbachev in August 1991, Akayev was the first leader of a Soviet republic to denounce their plot. He also severed his ties to the Communist Party. After the failed coup attempt, Kyrgyzstan and other Soviet republics began to declare their independence. In October the people of Kyrgyzstan elected Akayev as president in the country’s first direct presidential elections. The USSR officially ceased to exist in December, and Kyrgyzstan joined most of the former Soviet republics in forming a loose alliance called the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS).
Akayev immediately began to promote market-oriented reforms to restructure Kyrgyzstan’s Soviet-developed economy. Through his influence, in 1993 Kyrgyzstan became the first former Soviet republic in Central Asia to introduce its own currency, the som. Akayev also worked to establish diplomatic and economic ties with countries outside the former USSR, including the United States and other Western nations. In addition, Akayev joined Kyrgyzstan in economic and security alliances with other members of the CIS, as well as China. Akayev’s commitment to rapid economic reform helped Kyrgyzstan secure international financial assistance, including funds for infrastructure development projects.
Akayev also advocated democratic reforms, in contrast to the leaders of the other newly independent nations in Central Asia. As opposition parties and a free press became established, however, Akayev faced public criticism of his policies, as well as political opposition within the parliament. Kyrgyzstan’s new constitution, adopted in 1993, created a parliamentary system of government that transferred the functions of the head of government from the president to the prime minister. However, voters strongly endorsed Akayev and his economic programs in a 1994 referendum, strengthening his political position.
Akayev was reelected president in December 1995. Emboldened by his victory, he called for a referendum in February 1996 on constitutional amendments to enhance the powers of the president at the expense of the parliament. He claimed the changes were necessary to permit further economic restructuring in Kyrgyzstan. The referendum passed by an overwhelming majority.
In the following years, Akayev’s commitment to democratic reform was called into question. He appeared to become less tolerant of political opposition. Politicians and newspapers critical of his policies were subject to imprisonment or closure. Akayev remained committed to economic reform, but he was widely blamed for increasing poverty and lack of adequate social services.
Despite the constitutional limit of two presidential terms, the Constitutional Court of Kyrgyzstan ruled in 1998 that Akayev’s first term, which began under the old constitution, should not be counted. In 2000 Akayev was reelected with 74.5 percent of the vote in an election marred by voting irregularities. In February 2005 protests erupted in the country after some opposition candidates were disqualified from running in legislative elections. In March protestors stormed government buildings in Bishkek, and Akayev fled the country. He formally resigned in early April.