MOSCOW—The founder of a Kremlin youth group notorious for harassing Western diplomats and opposition figures announced Monday he is forming a "Party of Power" to shore up support for President Vladimir Putin, whose own political party dominates parliament but is deeply unpopular.
Critics of Mr. Putin dismissed the venture by Vasily Yakemenko, the acting head of the Federal Agency for Youth Affairs, as window dressing for a political system that offers the trappings of a Western-style democracy without real competition.
The Kremlin disqualified all serious opposition candidates from the March presidential election that ushered Mr. Putin into a new six-year term, and since then he has rejected the democratic changes demanded by demonstrators in the largest street protests since the fall of the Soviet Union.
On Monday, Mr. Putin announced a cabinet comprised mostly of longtime protégés. He reappointed key ministers in defense, finance and foreign relations, and gave the interior minister portfolio to the Moscow police chief who cracked down on street protests of recent months. Vladislav Surkov, an architect of Russia's system of tight political controls that the Kremlin calls "sovereign democracy," will remain a deputy prime minister.
One new appointee to the ministry of culture is a high-level official from Mr. Putin's United Russia party, who has lately called for the government to play a greater role in producing patriotic films and literature. "Stalin knew a lot about ideology and brainwashing," the official,Vladimir Medinsky, told a regional newspaper in February. "Now everything is left to chance, and efficiency has of course gone through the floor."
While the Kremlin has contained street protests in recent months, it has fretted publicly about the foundering appeal of United Russia. In December, the party won only a thin majority in parliament, despite widespread reports of vote fraud that election observers said favored the government.
Outrage over that election touched off the protests that have been held periodically since then. Mr. Putin's concern about social unrest contributed to his decision stay at home during G-8 meeting in the U.S. over the weekend, some Kremlin-watchers say.
On Monday, Mr. Yakemenko, the youth affairs chief, said he didn't think that United Russia could prevail in the next parliamentary elections in 2016 and that other parties in parliament have "nothing to offer young people."
Mr. Yakemenko has founded two pro-Kremlin groups—"Walking Together," and Nashi, or "Our Guys"—since Mr. Putin came to power 12 years ago, and is seen as a confidante of the president. He said the new Party of Power will draw on voters disenchanted with United Russia, even those who have been attending anti-Putin protests in recent months.
He declined to say how much the project would be supported and financed by the Kremlin. But he said: "I agreed on this political decision with the Kremlin, and I met with support there."
The Kremlin has in recent years floated a number of political groups to mobilize the electorate and often discarded them as they have foundered or failed to gain much appeal. Last year, Mr. Putin created an "All-Russia People's Front" to bring new people and ideas into his United Russia party, but the group never became an party itself.
Tycoon and Nets basketball team owner Mikhail Prokhorov was viewed by many as a Kremlin puppet when he registered as a presidential candidate this year. After coming in a distant third in the March vote, he has disappointed many supporters by repeatedly delaying plans to form a political party. In April he said he may opt instead for an apolitical nongovernment organization.
Mr. Yakemenko has proved an effective and loyal organizer, said Gleb Pavlovsky, a one-time Kremlin adviser who now works as an independent analyst. But Mr. Yakemenko's skills as the leader of a political party are untested, he added.
"It is too early to say whether this will be effective on any level," said Mr. Pavlovsky. "Right now it seems he is the speaker of this project, and maybe not even the author of it."
Mr. Yakemenko's past work has been an irritant to relations between Russia and the West. Members of his youth groups have pelted the embassy of Estonia in Moscow with bottles of paint and have been accused of carrying out physical attacks on members of Russia's political opposition. Mr. Yakemenko denies the allegations.
Mt. Yakemenko has routinely accused the U.S. of trying to foment revolution in Russia, and his followers have trailed the Moscow-based ambassadors of the U.K. and, more recently, the U.S. as they went to meetings with civil-society officials and businessmen in the Russian capital.
At his press conference Monday, Mr. Yakemenko said the platform of his Party of Power will take shape in meetings in the coming months. But he said that the party will appeal to older Russians as well as the young, and that it will be a training ground for future leaders and public servants.
He declined to say whether the party would support Mr. Putin personally. But he said that former President Dmitry Medvedev, who stepped down to make way for Mr. Putin's return to the Kremlin earlier month, failed in his campaign to modernize Russia.
"During Dmitry Medvedev's presidency, modernization remained but a dream," he said. "It didn't reflect the interests of the majority."
Write to Alan Cullison at alan.cullison@wsj.com
A version of this article appeared May 22, 2012, on page A13 in the U.S. edition of The Wall Street Journal, with the headline: Putin Reappoints Old Names As Kremlin Ally Starts Party.
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