Russian Party Asks Young: Who Wants to Be a Deputy?

LIPETSK, Russia -- To the list of contest prizes that stoke fantasies worldwide -- riches, fame, a dream date, a new washer-dryer -- add another: a seat in parliament.

Shunning pinstripes for shorts and bathing suits, a group of potential legislators was unveiled at a beach party here last weekend -- the first-round winners in a competition called Political Factory, modeled on the popular Russian television show "Star Factory." Plucked from obscurity, a few of these aspiring lawmakers, or deputies, are due to join the Russian ruling class by October.

"I'm ready to fight and to solve the problems of young people!" proclaimed a beaming Svetlana Kondakova, 21, on hearing she'd made the cut. When a DJ in wraparound shades remarked that what her bikini top concealed would help her advance in politics, the crowd roared its approval.

In April, the Supreme Council of United Russia, the political party that supports President Vladimir Putin and controls legislatures at both the federal and regional levels, decided that 20 percent of all candidates on party lists in future elections must be between 21 and 28 years of age.

The move is part of efforts to broaden the party's membership beyond the stolid bureaucrats and businessmen who currently stuff its ranks -- many of them inspired not by ideological fervor but by the party's almost complete electoral dominance.

Lipetsk's regional governor, Oleg Korolyov, joined United Russia last October, part of a wave of political grandees switching sides. But how to recruit at the entry level? Young Guard, the party's youth wing, hatched the idea of a reality contest and opened it up to all comers. The competition was launched in May in nine regions, including Lipetsk, that are scheduled to hold local parliamentary elections in the fall.

"It's the first time in Russian history that a party has made a decision to share real power . . . on every level from local to federal," said Ivan Demidov, a Young Guard leader and well-known television personality. "It's the first actual step toward renewing the elite."

According to surveys, young people in Russia are largely indifferent to politics, despite Kremlin fears that they could become the vanguard of the kind of popular revolt that toppled governments in neighboring Ukraine and Georgia. Although a host of youth organizations were formed in the last two years to tame or channel youth activism, most of them quickly faded.

So Young Guard used modern marketing to try to attract recruits.

You are young.

You are active.

You are moving forward,