Kyrgyz President Askar Akayev has left the country with his family for neighboring Kazakhstan amid mass opposition protests, the Interfax news agency reported.

Following is a profile of Akayev:

On Nov. 10, 1944, Akayev was born in the family of a collective-farm worker.

He started working as a metalworker at a factory in 1961. In 1968, he graduated from the Leningrad Institute of Precision Mechanics and Optics.

Between 1972 and 1973, Akayev worked in the Frunze Polytechnic Institute, and then again in the Leningrad Institute of Precision Mechanics and Optics as a senior researcher.

In 1976, he worked as an associate professor in Bishkek and then as head of a department of the Polytechnic Institute.

From 1986 to 1987, he was head of the Department for Science and Educational Institutions in the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Kyrgyzstan.

In 1987 he was elected vice-president of the Academy of Sciences and two years later was elected its president. That same year, Akayev was elected a deputy to the Supreme Soviet.

At a special session of the Supreme Soviet of the republic, held in October 1990, Akayev was elected president of Kyrgyzstan. On Oct. 12, 1991, he became the first nationally chosen president of Kyrgyzstan after the country gained its independence.

In 1995, he was re-elected president. In October 2000, he won a third term in office.

On Feb. 27, 2005, Akayev's supporters won a landslide victory in the parliament elections held with runoffs in many regions on March 13.

The opposition refused to accept the results and accused the authorities of fraud in the election, demanding Akayev's resignation. Akayev has blamed the opposition leaders for inciting a civil war.