President of Uzbekistan Islam Karimov

In 2016, the first president of Uzbekistan Islam Karimov died. For twenty-five years he has ruled the republic without fail, having established a rigid authoritarian regime. By unprecedented strengthening of the influence of the power structures, he ensured order and stability in the country, but all this was accompanied by the suppression of the individual and the domination of the state in all spheres of public life.

The Soviet period

Local propaganda calls his first national leader the father of independence, but up to a point he remained absolutely loyal to the USSR, having traveled from a simple engineer to the first secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Uzbek SSR.

President of Uzbekistan Karimov was born in the distant 1938 in Samarkand. He was trained at the Central Asian Polytechnic Institute, after which he began working at the Tashselmash plant. Then in his career was the Aviation Plant named after Chkalov, where he worked as an engineer.

In 1966, the beginning manager went to work in the State Planning Committee of the republic. Here, Islam Karimov began to rise up the career ladder, reaching the post of finance minister and head of the State Planning Committee. In 1986 he was sent to lead the Kashkadarya region as the first secretary of the Central Committee of the regional committee. Here he established himself as a man of exceptional personal integrity and integrity, which was a rarity in the eastern republics. After the transfer of the actual leader of the Uzbek SSR, Rafik Nishanov to Moscow, he became the first secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Republic.

The first president

Islam Karimov did not show any special separatist aspirations and actively agitated the population of Uzbekistan for preserving the USSR in a referendum in March 1991. The administrative resource worked properly, and more than 90% of citizens showed loyalty to the central government.

However, after the August putsch, the politician who was grasped understood the essence of the events that took place and immediately proclaimed the independence of Uzbekistan so that he was not preceded by competitors who were greedy for power. In December 1991, the people of Uzbekistan also voted unanimously for secession from the USSR, which, however, ordered a long life.

Unlike the socialist countries of Eastern Europe, power in the CIS remained in the hands of former so-called communists, who instantly changed their political orientation. Especially indicative was the example of Uzbekistan, where members of the Communist Party in full force moved to the People's Democratic Party headed by former first secretary Islam Karimov.

The election of the President of the Republic of Uzbekistan in 1991 was held on an alternative basis. Karimov was opposed by Muhammad Salih, chairman of the Erk movement. 86% of voters voted for the acting head, and he headed the country.

The Islamic Question

Uzbek President Karimov got a difficult legacy. Against the backdrop of the revival of interest in religion, Islamists, whose positions were particularly strong in the Fergana Valley, became noticeably more active. To avoid open fighting, Karimov had to personally fly to Namangan and negotiate with the leaders of the radicals, which required great personal courage.

For tactical purposes, he had to promise to fulfill all the conditions of fundamentalists in future years, but then he severely began to suppress such speeches by extorting extremists outside the country.

Economy and the Uzbek model

Having the diploma of Tashkent Institute of National Economy, the President of Uzbekistan realized himself as a great economist. He even developed a whole national economic model for the republic, the basic five provisions of which every Uzbek schoolboy should memorize by heart. The President of Uzbekistan wrote a book about this, which was carefully studied at public lessons in schools and universities.

Unlike Yeltsin, Karimov did not dumbfound his people with shock therapy, conducting a gradual transition to market relations. Against the background of the rampant crime and lawlessness in Russia and Ukraine, the inhabitants of the republic believed that they were lucky, and the president of Uzbekistan is working in the right direction. However, at the beginning of the 2000s there was a real stagnation in the economy, neighboring Kazakhstan jerked forward, while the potentially richer Uzbekistan did not show active development.

Today, the main export item is cotton, other agricultural products and natural resources. It comes to ridiculous and sad. The country, one of the ten largest importers of natural gas in the world, sharply reduces the distribution of blue fuel to its citizens in winter, especially in rural areas, because of which traditional methods of heating are being used - with firewood and dung.

After the stroke, the President of Uzbekistan died on August 29, 2016. The funeral took place on September 3. Karimov's successor was former Prime Minister Shavkat Mirziyoyev.