"Participating in the congress will be delegates from over 60 Russian regions," he said.
"There will be no well-promoted personalities in the party in the beginning, because the New Right-Wingers seek to attract attention to their work and not personalities," said Mr. Shmelev.
As for the reasons behind the formation of the party, he said, "There is no real right-wing party in Russia now." Mr. Shmelev stressed that his party had no intention of engaging representatives of the old political circles. "We do not want to regroup the old political representatives and only change the labels, brands and names," he said. According to Mr. Shmelev, the task of the New Right-Wingers is to attract new people into politics and state administration.
As for the ideology of the new party, Mr. Shmelev said the ideals of the party relied on the values of motherland, freedom and civil patriotism. We intend to reconcile liberal values with patriotic values shared by the majority of Russian citizens," he explained.
"We, and not Zyuganov and Semigin [leaders of the Communist Party] are a true national and patriotic party; we, and not Nemtsov and Khakamada [former leaders of the Union of Right Forces, which failed to cross the 5% margin at the December 7, 2003 parliamentary elections, like Yavlinsky's Yabloko] are a true right-wing party," said Alexander Shmelev, chief of the ideological commission of the organisation committee.
The founders of the party also said it would assign priority to the primary political activity, the work on specific territories and solution of specific tasks. The party intends to participate in the municipal and regional elections soon.
