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%,…