The Tulip Revolution? The Lemon Revolt? The latest display of people power in the former Soviet Union happened so quickly that Western pundits barely had time to choose a name for it.

First came Georgia's "Rose Revolution" in 2003 that saw the bloodless departure of Eduard Shevardnadze, the former Soviet foreign minister who had ruled the country for over a decade. Then, last December, Ukraine's Orange Revolution saw off Viktor Yanukovych, the Kremlin-backed presidential candidate.

Then, today, President Askar Akayev of Kyrgystan, who had ruled the Central Asian republic since 1990, fled from another people's revolt, his government collapsing after his helicopter left for neighbouring Kazakhstan.

All three uprisings were caused by popular anger at rigged elections, suggesting that even if democracy is being eroded in Russia itself, on the fringes of the old Russian Empire, it is on the march.

Kyrgystan is a small, mountainous and rural country that became independent with the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. Its five million people are truly multi-ethnic - the Kyrgyz people living besides Uzbeks,Tajiks, Russian, Ukrainians and Germans, not to mention Uighur, Dungan and Koreans.

Mr Akayev, a softly-spoken physicist, was elected by the country's Supreme Soviet in 1990, a year before independence. For a long time he was considered the most liberal ruler of any former Soviet Republic - focusing early on land privatisation and economic reform.

But his country suffered economically with the collapse of the Soviet trading networks and Mr Akayev himself began to become more authoritarian. He was re-elected in 1995 and 2000 - and doubts were raised about both votes.

The immediate cause of his departure was parliamentary elections on March 13 that were widely seen as rigged. Few of the country's citizens trusted him when he said that he would not rewrite the constitution and stand for a fourth term of office in a presidential election due later this year.

The speed of his departure, after barely a week of protests, came as a surprise to many observers. Mr Akayev fled the country within hours of protests that had started in two southern cities arriving in the capital, Bishkek, where thousands of demonstrators stormed the main government building, the White House.

Many of the protesters wore red and yellow headbands - the colours adopted by opposition parties. Many carried tulips, a symbol of peace in the Central Asian state. Either way, the day was theirs.

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