Some said Kurmanbek Bakiyev did a lot of good for the country and dismissed the complaints of the opposition members who drove him out, but many other appeared weary of the country's turmoil and were willing to support anyone who can bring them a measure of stability and comfort.
Bakiyev fled the capital, Bishkek, on Wednesday after a protest rally against corruption, rising utility bills and deteriorating human rights exploded into police gunfire and chaos that left at least 79 people dead and sparked protesters to storm government buildings. He was believed to be in his home Jalal-Abad region on Saturday.
"He built the economy. He built schools, roads and kindergartens. The protesters were just a minority," said Aizat Zupukharova, a health worker in Jalal-Abad.
But, she added, "People are afraid to come out."
"Bakiyev did some good things, but his family led him astray," said another resident, Sapar Usmonov, referring to widespread allegations that Bakiyev's relatives profited hugely and improperly from his nearly five years in office. Those claims echo those made against Bakiyev's predecessor, Askar Akayev, who was driven out of office in protests in 2005.
The interim rulers say they have offered Bakiyev safe passage out of the country if he steps down, but he has made no public sign of capitulation. That stalemate leaves Kyrgyzstan's near-term stability in doubt, a strategic worry for the West because of the U.S. air base in Kyrgyzstan that is a key element in the international military campaign against the Taliban in Afghanistan.
The base provides refueling flights for warplanes over Afghanistan and is an important transit point for troops. U.S. Central Command spokesman Maj. John Redfield said that although normal flight operations at the base were resumed Friday, military passenger flights were being temporarily diverted.
Kyrgyzstan's society is strongly clannish, but there are few overt signs that Bakiyev's fellow southerners would coalesce into support for him against the self-declared opposition interim government even though they think well of him.
Jalal-Abad is on the southern side of the soaring mountain massifs that divide Kyrgyzstan into often-rival sections. Usmonov expressed fatigue with such jockeying for power.
"It doesn't matter where the president comes from - he just has to be a fitting man," he said.
Across the mountains in the capital, hundreds of people gathered in one of Kyrgyzstan's most prestigious cemeteries for the burial of some of those who died Wednesday. The interments tacitly conferred national hero status on the dead.
