Shavkat Mirziyoyev

Biography

Shavkat Mirziyoyev was born in 1957 in the Jizzakh region of Soviet Uzbekistan, the son of a physician. He graduated from the Tashkent Institute of Irrigation and Melioration in 1981 and holds a candidate of sciences degree in technical sciences. He joined the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in the late 1980s and in 1990 was elected to the last Supreme Soviet of the Uzbek SSR.

After independence he was hokim (governor) of Tashkent's Mirzo Ulugbek district from 1992, of Jizzakh Region from 1996 and of Samarqand Region from 2001. President Islam Karimov appointed him prime minister in December 2003, and he held the post for thirteen years, concentrating on agriculture, industry and exports.

When Karimov died in September 2016, parliament named him interim president, and he won the December 2016 election with about 89 percent of the official vote in a contest observers said offered no genuine choice. As president he eased economic controls, sought foreign investment, mended relations with Uzbekistan's Central Asian neighbours and freed political prisoners, closing Jaslyk prison in 2019, though elections have remained unfree.

He was re-elected in 2021. In 2022 his proposal to end Karakalpakstan's autonomy set off deadly protests and was withdrawn; a 2023 constitutional referendum reset his term count, and he won an early election in July 2023. He chaired the Organization of Turkic States from 2022 to 2025.