Interim Leader Wins Kyrgyz Poll

Kyrgyzstan's acting leader won a landslide victory in the presidential election last night, four months after the former president Askar Akayev fled the country in the wake of a popular uprising.

With 47.5% of the vote counted, Kurmanbek Bakiyev's tally was just under 88%, the central election commission said on its website

The election was forced by the "tulip revolution", during which crowds ransacked Mr Akayev's offices in March after weeks of protest over a parliamentary poll international observers said had been rigged.

Fears of pre-election violence in the central Asian state failed to materialise, despite a tense lead-up to polling day.

"These elections are unique, because for the first time since independence [in 1991] they present a genuine choice in the most accurate sense of this word," Mr Bakiyev told reporters before casting his vote.

Mr Bakiyev, a former prime minister and one of the leaders of the protests that ousted Mr Akayev, emerged as a frontrunner when he was named interim president.

Previously splintered opposition forces have consolidated around him and he neutralised his chief rival, the former security services chief Felix Kulov, by offering him the post of prime minister. The tactic seemed to have paid off last night with Mr Bakiyev's closest challenger of the five other candidates, populist Akbaraly Aitikeyev, on about 4%.

Mr Akayev suffered the indignity of being denied a vote yesterday at the Kyrgyz embassy in Moscow, where he lives in exile. Officials said he was not on a list of voters.

The former president was once seen as a comparatively enlightened leader in the region, but towards the end of his tenure was accused of fixing elections and channelling power to family members.

He was driven out during several days of rioting and looting in Bishkek, in which at least three people died. His daughter, Bermet Akayeva, who was stripped of her parliamentary seat after alleged electoral irregularities, voted in the capital.

Monitors from the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe noted few serious violations in the run-up to the election but warned of "an uncertain security situation".

There were no signs of violence yesterday as officials declared the vote valid at 5pm, when turnout passed 50%.

Mr Bakiyev has sent mixed signals on his international allegiances, but joined leaders of Russia, China and other central Asian states last week in demanding that the US name a date for withdrawing its airbases from the region.