Fearing people power, Russia slams Moldova protests

By Conor Humphries - Analysis

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia's sharp reaction to the violent anti-government protests in Moldova's capital this week betrayed deep-rooted fears that the global economic crisis might spark mass protests on its own streets.

Crowds of Moldovan students denouncing alleged election fraud by the ruling Communists smashed their way into the parliament and set it ablaze last Tuesday. The authorities responded with a crackdown and mass arrests.

For Moscow's ruling class, the protests revived bad memories of street rallies in ex-Soviet republics Ukraine and Georgia that toppled pro-Moscow regimes, and raised fears that young Russian crowds might one day slip out of the Kremlin's control.

Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov described the young protesters who ransacked Moldova's parliament as "pogrom-makers" set on destroying the country. Official newspaper Rossiiskaya Gazeta blamed the West and warned of civil war in Moldova.

"The Moscow authorities are afraid of spontaneous mass protests in the regions...and for this reason Russian television is showing what is happening in an exclusively negative light," said Dmitry Oreshkin, a Moscow-based political analyst.

"It is beneficial for the Kremlin to show the consequences of peoples' protests to justify why it needs to be tough," Oreshkin said.

Muscovites have so far shunned big protests but the deepening financial crisis is raising fears that workers in Russia's industrial heartlands, where factories have fired workers and slashed pay, may take to the streets.

As in Georgia's 2003 "Rose Revolution" and the Ukraine's Orange Revolution a year later, Russian media portrayed Moldovan protesters as irresponsible, led astray by Western agents -- in particular the neighbouring Romanians.