Saparmurat Niyazov

Saparmurat Niyazov led Turkmenistan for over two decades, first as Communist Party secretary from 1985, then as president after the Soviet collapse in 1991. He supported the failed 1991 Soviet coup and carried that authoritarian instinct into independence, building a cult of personality so extreme he renamed days and months after his autobiography, the Ruhnama, which became mandatory reading in every school, university, and job interview. In 1999 the Assembly declared him president for life. His eccentricities hardened into brutality: in 2005 he shuttered all rural libraries and hospitals outside the capital, telling a population that was more than half rural to travel to Ashgabat if they were ill. Under his rule Turkmenistan recorded the lowest life expectancy in Central Asia while he allegedly held over $3 billion in foreign accounts. He died in office in December 2006.