Tulip Revolution

The Tulip Revolution or First Kyrgyz Revolution overthrew President Askar Akayev and his government in the Central Asian republic of Kyrgyzstan after the parliamentary elections of February 27 and of March 13, 2005. The revolution sought the end of rule by Akayev and by his family and associates, who in popular opinion had become increasingly corrupt and authoritarian. Following the revolution, Akayev fled to Kazakhstan and Russia afterwards. On April 4 he signed his resignation statement in the presence of a Kyrgyz parliamentary delegation in his country's embassy in Moscow, and on April 11 the Kyrgyz Parliament ratified his resignation.

In the early stages of the revolution, the media variously referred to the unrest as the "Pink," "Lemon", "Silk", or "Daffodil" Revolution. But it was "Tulip Revolution," a term that Akayev himself used in a speech warning that no such Color Revolution should happen in Kyrgyzstan, that came to represent the movement. Such terms evoked similarities with the non-violent Rose Revolution in Georgia and the Orange Revolution in Ukraine in 2004, whose names owe a debt to the 1989 Czechoslovak Velvet Revolution and the 1974 Portuguese Carnation Revolution.