Askar Akayev
Askar Akayev was the only Central Asian president in 1991 who had not run the local communist party, and he ended up leaving the same way as the ones who had. He was a physicist specialising in optical computing, president of the Kyrgyz Academy of Sciences, and was elected by the republic's parliament in 1990 as a compromise after ethnic riots in the south. That made Kyrgyzstan the exception in the region: the early 1990s brought a free press, opposition parties and a reputation as the island of democracy in Central Asia, and it was the first post-Soviet state admitted to the World Trade Organisation. The reputation eroded steadily. Referendums extended his powers, the constitution was amended repeatedly, opposition journalists were prosecuted, and in 2002 police killed protesters in the southern district of Aksy. His family acquired substantial holdings in telecommunications, fuel and the country's largest market. The parliamentary elections of February and March 2005 returned his relatives and allies, and the protests that followed began in the south and reached Bishkek within weeks. On 24 March a crowd took the presidential building; there was almost no shooting, and he left the country the same day. It was called the Tulip Revolution, after the colour revolutions in Georgia and Ukraine. He resigned formally from Moscow and became a professor there. Neither of the presidents who followed him finished a term either - one was overthrown in 2010 and one resigned in 2020 - which has made Kyrgyzstan the only country in the region where governments change and the least stable one in it.
- Lived: 1944 CE – ?
- Nationality: Kyrgyz
- Roles: head_of_state, politician
