Rodina's leader Dmitry Rogozin has never concealed that from the very beginning the party has been supported by the Kremlin, he even called it "the President's personal project," Nezavisimaya Gazeta recalls. The project is successful: Rodina did well at the Duma elections and survived is a parliamentary faction. According to the newspaper, now the Kremlin is preparing it to become the main opponent to United Russia (expecting that the Communist Party will be completely neutralized by the next election). "Those absolutely loyal to the authorities will join United Russia," says a source familiar with the Kremlin's plans. "And those who want to act as not quite loyal will join Rodina."
The Rodina project is supervised by Alexei Chesnokov, subordinate of deputy head of the President's administration Vladislav Surkov and former head of the Political Environment Center. He is also responsible for the national television. Rodina must have already realized how lucky it is to get such a supervisor: according to the Medialogia research group, its mentioning on the national channels from September 1 up to now exceeds significantly that of United Russia. The situation is different only on the Ren TV, which does not receive direct instructions from the Kremlin. This proves that the talk about United Russia's active exploitation of the administrative resource is not quite correct, believes Alexei Volin, one of the group's founders.
In this situation the party of power is jealous about the Kremlin's younger child, Rodina, the newspaper points out. Among themselves United Russia members call Rogozin's party only "natspops" (national populists) or "the brown Communists". However, the party's leaders are more cautious in their public statements. "Rodina has an aggressive and extremist ideology, it was not created quite democratically," says Valery Bogomolov, secretary of United Russia's general council.
After the parliamentary elections the television has been clearly less interested in United Russia. "Many people expected Putin to join the party and head it," says Alexei Makarkin, deputy general director of the Political Technologies Center. "When it did not happen, they began forgetting the party." The same happens in the public conscience.
According to the Public Opinion fund, United Russia's rating has fallen by 4 percent since the beginning of the year. The recent poll of 2,000 Russians shows that now its popularity is 25 percent. Rodina's rating has also fallen against January, from 5 to 3 percent.
