Revolution that came too soon starts to fall apart in chaotic Kyrgyzstan

The success of Central Asia's first post-Soviet revolution was starting to look distinctly shaky last night, as Kyrgyzstan's self-appointed coalition struggled to form an interim government and assert the power it had won so precipitately earlier in the week. Reports from the capital, Bishkek, said that bands of youths, some armed, roamed the streets and sporadic looting continued. Local observers spoke of a growing sense that no one was in charge.

The success of Central Asia's first post-Soviet revolution was starting to look distinctly shaky last night, as Kyrgyzstan's self-appointed coalition struggled to form an interim government and assert the power it had won so precipitately earlier in the week. Reports from the capital, Bishkek, said that bands of youths, some armed, roamed the streets and sporadic looting continued. Local observers spoke of a growing sense that no one was in charge.

The ousted Kyrgyz president, Askar Akayev, meanwhile, was reported to be in Moscow, having flown there from his first point of refuge in neighbouring Kazakhstan. A defiant statement issued in his name and distributed by email yesterday said that he left the country "for humane reasons, so as to avoid bloodshed and prevent casualties". But his tone soon turned threatening. He remained president, he said, and "any attempt to deprive me of my presidential powers by unconstitutional means will be a state crime". He had been overthrown by "adventurers and conspirators".

While Mr Akayev's sudden re-emergence yesterday - and so far it remains "virtual" rather than physical - served to remind many about why he had been overthrown, it may also have sowed doubt in some quarters about the legitimacy, and the permanence, of the regime that has replaced him.

Under Kyrgyzstan's constitution - passed in 1993 after the republic had independence thrust upon it by the collapse of the Soviet Union - an absent or incapacitated President is replaced by the Prime Minister. In this case, however, the Prime Minister resigned shortly after Mr Akayev fled the country. Other senior ministers had just been dismissed by the President as punishment for the unrest that followed the parliamentary elections, as had the chief of police.

The temporary solution was an emergency meeting of the outgoing parliament late last Thursday, which appointed one of its members to be the new speaker - Ishenbay Kadyrbekov, a leading opposition figure who was a former minister for construction. Another opposition leader, Kurmanbek Bakiyev, was named as acting prime minister and entrusted with forming an interim cabinet. He was quickly declared acting president as well.

Such sweeping changes, however, appear already to be running into trouble. Their legitimacy would seem to be questionable, at the very least, and is already inspiring opposition. The prospect of waiting until June for new elections, whether for a new president or a new parliament, will require a measure of patience that Kyrgyz voters - who forced their President out of office within a matter of days - may be disinclined to show. Those aspiring to power may well want to entrench themselves in office rather sooner.

Among the more ominous signs from Bishkek yesterday were reports of ad hoc militias being set up by individual ethnic groups, including Russians, intent on defending the lives and property of their own communities. Ethnic tension has long been high in the south of the country, where it borders on Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, and it was violence in Osh in the south, Kyrgyzstan's second city, immediately after the second round of the parliamentary elections which arguably helped to fuel the unrest further north.

And, warning of a risk of civil war, the ousted interior minister said yesterday he was leading thousands of demonstrators towards the capital to protest against "the coup" that overthrew Mr Akayev. The new leadership said the action had fizzled out but later switched the venue of a news conference on word of a possible plot to kill the acting president, Mr Bakiyev.

The biggest difficulty for an interim administration, however, is that there is no central figure around whom the political opposition can rally. Although the precedents of Georgia and Ukraine have been repeatedly cited as models for the Kyrgyz "revolution", both these countries had strong opposition figures who commanded loyalty and provided a focus for political protest. And when they called on their supporters to show discipline, they were listened to. There is no such figure in Kyrgyzstan. Arguably, the revolution came too soon. The main figures named to the interim administration represent quite different groups and interests. They already appear to be jockeying among themselves for the presidency. This does not bode well for a united interim government - let alone one that will last until late June. There is not even consensus on how to describe the "revolution" - "tulip" or "daffodil".

The ignominious flight of the president as protesting crowds invaded the presidential compound and government buildings in Bishkek would not have been how Askar Akayev would have wanted to be remembered in Kyrgyzstan. When he came to power in 1990, it was as a mild-mannered nuclear physicist, with a doctorate from Leningrad (now St Petersburg) University, who was chosen from the ranks of the Communist Party in the wake of serious ethnic violence in the southern border areas of the republic. He was chosen precisely because he did not have the profile of a party hack, but that of a liberal and progressive politician rather in the mould of Mikhail Gorbachev, who would be able to keep the country together through turbulent times. This profile endeared him to the West, as did his decision a few months before the break-up of the Soviet Union to abandon Mr Gorbachev and throw in his lot with the Russian leader, Boris Yeltsin.

When I interviewed him in September 1991, he was eloquent in his hopes for his homeland - and confident that he could preside over the modernisation of Kyrgyzstan as a state and an economy. Even then, however, the contrast between his own education and outlook and that of the majority of his fellow-countrymen was sharp. I was sped in a convoy of government limousines for four hours from Bishkek to the presidential summer compound on the shore of the spectacular and legendary inland lake, Issyk-kul. The whole road had been cleared of traffic; only a few herdsmen on horseback were to be seen along the whole route. There was dinner, Russian-style, with the Akayev family and aides - and eventually the following day, postponed from one hour to the next, rather in the way of early oriental potentates, a formal interview.

In many ways, he also seemed personally caught between traditions. Thoroughly at home in a Russian milieu, he felt the weight of his responsibility as an educated Kyrgyz. Increasingly, he came to see himself as indispensable to his country's future. From 1996 he presided over constitutional changes that allowed him to remain in power. His now grown-up children were widely perceived to have benefited inordinately from patronage. The economic promises he had repeatedly made were felt to be empty.

More and more aware of how the rest of the world - and their Central Asian neighbours lived - and protested - increasing numbers of Kyrgyz seethed with resentment.

The test of the "tulip" - or is it the "daffodil"? - revolution will be whether Kyrgyz voters are content with the change they have forced. Or will they, in a few months' time, be wishing they had their old president back?