Scientist-president who moved from reformist promise to prolonged rule
At the Supreme Soviet session on 26 August 1991, Akayev declared the draft Union Treaty 'unacceptable' and demanded a confederal revision.
A physicist and former president of Kyrgyzstan's Academy of Sciences, Akayev was elected the republic's first president in 1990 as an outsider to the senior party apparatus. Amid late-Soviet ethnic conflict and demands for sovereignty, he promoted pluralism and market reform, then quickly condemned the 1991 coup attempt and led Kyrgyzstan toward independence. At the Novo-Ogaryovo negotiations he put republican sovereignty first, calling the August treaty draft unacceptable and demanding a revision closer to confederation. His later rule brought extended presidential terms, family-centered politics and corruption allegations, ending in his overthrow during the 2005 popular protests.
Activities and affiliations
Career Timeline
- 1967–1988Researcher and professor, Frunze Polytechnic Institute; head of computer engineering
- 1987–1989Vice-president, Academy of Sciences of the Kirghiz SSR
- 1989–1990President, Academy of Sciences of the Kirghiz SSR
- 1990.10–1991.08President of the Kirghiz SSR
- 1991.08–2005.03President of Kyrgyzstan
- 1991.08.26At the Supreme Soviet, opposed the New Union Treaty draft and demanded a confederal revision
- 2005–현재Professor and researcher at Moscow State University, based in Russia
Related historical events
- 1991The Novo-Ogaryovo Process and the New Union TreatyKyrgyz president who rejected the treatyAt the August 26 Supreme Soviet session, he called the draft 'unacceptable' and demanded a confederal revision, shifting the post-coup consensus.
- 1991The August Coup and the Collapse of the USSRKyrgyz president condemning the coupAkayev quickly condemned the 1991 coup attempt.
After 2005: exile, a scholarly life in Moscow, and the Kumtor return
When protesters seized the presidential compound on 24 March 2005, Akayev fled with his family, first to Kazakhstan and then to Russia, where Vladimir Putin permitted him to stay. Some reports said he had tendered his resignation before departing, but his formal resignation came on 4 April, when a delegation of Kyrgyz parliament members met him in Russia; parliament accepted it on 11 April.
In Russia he returned to academic work as a professor at Moscow State University and a senior researcher at the Prigogine Institute for the Study of Complex Systems, and with Andrey Korotayev and others he coordinated the Russian Academy of Sciences program on system analysis and mathematical modeling of world dynamics. In May 2006 he was elected a foreign full member of the Academy in the field of information technology and computing systems, and from 2014 he headed a laboratory monitoring risks of socio-political destabilization at Moscow's Higher School of Economics. In August 2023 he told a Russian broadcaster that Kyrgyzstan should support Russia.
Judicial pressure continued at home. In 2006 prosecutors reported more than a hundred criminal cases against his relatives and associates, and in August 2010 he was stripped of immunity and of the status of former president on accusations including the transfer of Kyrgyz land to China and Kazakhstan.
In July 2021 he was placed on a wanted list over the Kumtor gold mine scandal, and in August he returned to Bishkek for the first time in sixteen years to cooperate with investigators. The criminal cases against him were discontinued in December 2021 and January 2023. In February 2023, at the initiative of President Sadyr Japarov, Kyrgyzstan's former presidents gathered and Akayev shook hands with Japarov and the other former heads of state.