Following elections in Moldova violent protests broke out and some youth NGOs and the opposition is trying to overthrow the reelected government. While this looks like a color revolution, the otherwise usual support for it from the U.S. and EU seems to be missing.

Moldova is a small landlocked and very poor country between Romania and Ukraine in south east Europe. Throughout history ownership of Moldova changed several times between Romania and Russia. Since 1991 it is independent but the Russophon part east of the river Dniester split off and is now the effectively independent Transnistria. The official language in the rest of the country is Romanian.

The 1990s were economically catastrophic for Moldova. The GDP per person is the lowest in Europe. Out of 4.2 million Moldovans 600,000 live and work abroad. Since 2001 the communist party, essentially social-democrats more or less friendly with Russia, is ruling the country and two days ago again won elections.

International election observers from the OECD confirmed the results.

Allegations of election fraud led to opposition demonstrations in the capitol Chisinau where some youth groups stormed (video) and set fire to (video) the parliament and the president's office. The police came out and the government now has again the upper hand. Youth protests after elections with demands of re-voting seem to follow the typical scheme of a U.S. engineered color revolution.

A good, though a bit partisan chronology of the last days is here. Additionally some links through twitter.

What is missing from a normal color revolution is the support from 'western' countries and their media. But there are some hints that this is a privately arranged coup, probably with support from Romania, that uses the color revolution tools.

The conflict here has several layers. The young city folks voted for the opposition for economic reasons and the elder rural majority voted for the 'communists'. Something weird: Photos from the riots show lots of people with very short hair – Skinheads? Hooligans? Police?

There is movement from Romania to essentially annex Moldova and some of the protesters indeed carried Romanian (and EU) flags. Moldova's government recalled its ambassador to Romania, told the Romanian ambassador to Moldova to leave and closed the border.

Another conflict layer is a personal spat between the oligarch Anatol Stati, Moldova's richest man, and the 'communist' president Vladimir Voronin, father of another rich oligarch. Voronin accuses Stati of financing the opposition party and of dubious business practices.

Stati allegedly made $2 billion within a few years by drilling for oil in Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan. He recently made a contentious production sharing agreement deal with the authorities of south Sudan. (Someone should ask him about those T-72 tanks south Sudan got from Ukraine.) Stati's main company is ASCOM but most of the business runs through Tristan Oil residing in the tax haven British Virgin Islands. The second man in Stati's business is one Artur Lungu:

Prior to joining Ascom, Mr. Lungu served as the Assistant Director of a USAID Contractor to the Romanian government from 2003 to 2005 where he was responsible for strategic planning and budgeting.
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Mr. Lungu holds a degree from the Academy of Economic Studies, Chisinau, Moldova and received a Masters degree, in Public Administration from the University of Delaware.

Lungu is named as project manager for several issues in this (pdf) old Soros foundation activity report and as a 'fellow' in a British equivalent, the John Smith Memorial Trust.

Before the election the son of Stati, Gabriel, a Vice President of ASCOM and owner of a major soccer club once arrested for hooliganism, called for the youth to vote for the opposition block. He is identified as:

Chairman of the International Youth Movement, President of the Federation of International Combat Arts Voievod, …

The chronology linked above says:

A number of youth NGOs and movements went out in the streets at the same time with the Liberal Democratic Party, one of the most vociferous protesters of the election results.

The demonstrations look like a color revolution but the lack of support form the 'west' lets me assume that they are not an 'official' one. Instead the money of Anatol Stati, his son's friends and/or Romanian sources may be the main forces behind these events with the U.S. trained Artur Lungu being the operational brain.

For additional coverage see Moldova.org and the Romanian Hotnews.ro sites.