Shavkat Mirziyoyev

Born 24 July 1957, Mirziyoyev joined the Communist Party in the late 1980s and climbed through Soviet-era machinery: deputy of the Supreme Soviet in 1990, then governor of Jizzakh and Samarqand before Islam Karimov made him prime minister in 2003. When Karimov died in September 2016, the Oliy Majlis named Mirziyoyev acting president; he won election three months later with 88.6% of the vote. What followed was a turn: liberal reforms, WTO reintegration, the closure of Jaslyk Prison in 2019, a new foreign policy that opened Uzbekistan to the West and East alike. He won again in 2021 with 80.3%, then pushed through constitutional changes in 2023 - including expanded human rights protections and a reset of term limits that let him run a third time as an independent. One proposal, stripping Karakalpakstan's right to secession, triggered deadly unrest in July 2022; he scrapped it after the crackdown. He won the snap election with 87.7% and now chairs the Organization of Turkic States.