President Akayev sought to calm the unrest in the former Soviet Central Asian state by ordering a partial review of election results and by calling for talks with the Opposition.

Opposition leaders vowed to continue the protests, which they hope will snowball into a “tulip” or “lemon” revolution, modelled on the upheavals in Ukraine last year and Georgia in 2003.

“The south of the country is under the control of the people. Now we should concentrate on Bishkek (the capital),” Roza Otunbayeva, an opposition leader and former ambassador to Britain, told The Times.

“We have only one demand — that Akayev should resign,” she said. Mrs Otunbayeva, who was blocked from running in the election, urged the Government not to declare a state of emergency, but analysts said there was a risk that the unrest could trigger a conflict between the prosperous north, which is dominated by ethnic Kyrgyz, and the impoverished, mainly Uzbek south.

The stand-off also spilt into the international arena yesterday as Russia backed Mr Akayev and criticised Western observers for stirring unrest by declaring the elections undemocratic.

Opposition supporters occupied five local government headquarters in southern and western districts after the polls, which were held on February 27, with runoffs on March 13.

Police evicted opposition activists from the governor’s office in Osh, Kyrgyzstan’s second-biggest city, on Saturday, but yesterday a crowd of about 1,000 men stormed the governor’s office and police headquarters. Later they took control of Osh airport.

About 15,000 people joined a protest calling for Mr Akayev’s resignation in the southern city of Jalalabad.

On Sunday thousands of opposition supporters stormed the local government headquarters and burnt down the police station in Jalalabad after the police briefly evicted them from the governor’s office. Four officers were beaten to death, according to local reports.

Mr Akayev has said that attempts by the Opposition to stage a Ukrainian-style revolution could be hijacked by Islamic radicals in the south, sparking a civil war. Mr Akayev, who has been in office since 1990, has promised not to run in a presidential election in October.

Nevertheless, the Opposition accuses him of cramming parliament with friends and relatives with a view to changing the Constitution to prolong his rule, like other Central Asian leaders.

The Organisation for Co-operation and Security in Europe and the United States have said that the election was marred by vote-buying, state media bias and disqualification of opposition candidates.

President Akayev yesterday ordered the Central Election Commission and the Supreme Court to investigate the alleged election violations.

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