Internal contradictions in Kyrgyzstan rather than interventions from outside caused the overthrow of President Askar Akayev's government, the head of an independent Kyrgyz think-tank said here Tuesday.

"While corruption and poverty constitute underlying hotbeds of people's resentment, irregularities during the recent elections are the direct catalyst for the incident," said Marat Tazabekov, director of the Economic Policy Institute (EPI), in an exclusive interview with Xinhua.

The Bishkek-based EPI is said by Tazabekov to be a non-governmental research institute initiated with the sponsorship of billionaire George Solos and currently receives funding from a varied source of sponsors, among them the World Bank.

The recent parliamentary elections in February and March, he said, were relatively fairer and more objective compared with previous ones.

With Akayev himself suggesting several times that he would not run for presidency later this year and a foreseeable more power for the parliament, competition in the parliamentary elections was exceptionally bitter, he said.

As many powerful politicians and businessmen scrambled for a seat, some sordid practices emerged, including bribery and the restrictions on the opposition's participation imposed by the government.

These fueled people's resentment who had already complained about the slow progress in the common people's living standard, Tazabekov said. Kyrgyz living in poverty account for about 38 percent of the total population and an ordinary civil servant only earns 30 to 40 US dollars a month.

Tazabekov dismissed the idea that foreign forces played a key role in the upheaval in the central Asian country of five million mostly Muslim people.

Unlike Georgia and Ukraine, outright foreign intervention was not observed in Kyrgyzstan, he said.

Both Georgia and Ukraine witnessed "bloodless revolutions" over the last two years when disputed elections triggered nationwide protests and eventually led to the overturn of the governments.

But Tazabekov agreed that the Kyrgyz opposition was emboldened by regime changes in the two former Soviet republics.

In Kyrgyzstan's case, a series of fast-moving developments caught everyone off guard, including the opposition forces themselves, he said.

"Protesters stormed into the main government building, only to find the president gone and the police nowhere to be seen," Tazabekov said.

Faced with such a temporary power vacuum, the opposition camp at one time did not know what to do, he said.

Besides, the police had drawn lessons from an incident nearly three years ago when some policemen were sentenced to jail after following orders to fire at demonstrators, Tazabekov said.

He was referring to the deadly clash between police and demonstrators in 2002 when six people were killed in southern Kyrgyzstan.

The incident caused the resignation of the then-prime minister Kurmanbek Bakiyev, who was appointed to the post again by the new Kyrgyz parliament on Monday.

This time, he said, the police refrained from taking actions against the demonstrators and avoided possible clashes.

The subsequent riots that struck the capital on March 24 and 25caused up to 100 million US dollars of direct material losses when numerous shops, banks and government buildings were looted or torched, Tazabekov said, citing data from the International Industry Committee.

Tazabekov credited Akayev for pursuing a foreign policy which seeks a balance between the East and the West and among the big powers. "That was basically correct and did bring benefits to the country," he said.

The succeeding leadership is not expected to make significant changes to such a policy, he said, adding that the military bases of both Russia and the United States are also expected to stay in Kyrgyzstan.