Karimov, Islam
(b. 1938), President of Uzbekistan. For over a decade, Islam Karimov has been the central figure in the politics of the Central Asian nation of Uzbekistan. Islam Karimov was born on 30 January 1938 in a town outside of Samarqand in present-day Uzbekistan. He graduated from the Polytechnic Institute in Tashkent in 1960 and worked as an engineer at the Tashkent Aviation plant from 1960 until 1966. At that point, having completed a degree program at the Institute of National Economics, Karimov took a job at the State Planning Agency (Gosplan), where he worked from 1966 to 1983. He was appointed minister of finance of the Uzbek Soviet Socialist Republic in April 1983 and rose to the rank offirst secretary of the Communist Party of Uzbekistan in June of 1989. In March 1990, the Supreme Soviet elected him president, a position he carried over into the post-Soviet era.
President Karimov (right) at a press conference with U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld on 5 October 2001. Rumsfeld was in Uzbekistan to discuss the use of Uzbekistan territory to launch attacks against the Taliban in Afghanistan. (AFP/CORBIS)Karimov was able to weather the breakup of the Soviet Union by declaring Uzbekistan independent in August 1991 and winning a December 1991 presidential election with 86 percent of the vote. He pushed through a referendum in March 1995 that extended his term and overwhelmingly won reelection in January 2000. In addition, by crafting a constitution that emphasized presidential authority, he has been able to maintain a tight grip on the political system of the nation. Furthermore, President Karimov has been able to thwart efforts on the part of a weak and divided opposition to seriously challenge his authority. The West has often criticized him for his nation's poor human rights record—to which he has responded that such actions are necessary to maintain stability.
Further Reading
Karimov, Islam A. (1997) Uzbekistan on the Threshold of the Twenty-First Century. Tashkent, Uzbekistan: Uzbekistan Publishers.
Kangas, Roger D. (2001) "The Karimov Presidency: Amir Timur Revisited." In Power and Change in Central Asia, edited by Sally Cummings. London: Routledge.
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