MOSCOW, March 29 (Reuters) - Russia's second biggest political party, the only political grouping to claim Kremlin support, said on Saturday it would challenge the government's economic reformers in December's parliamentary elections.
United Russia, which came out of nowhere in 1999 to become the second biggest party after the Communist Party by backing then Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, said it would also campaign to end Russia's bid to join the World Trade Organisation (WTO).
The party, which includes Kremlin figures and the leaders of major regions, said the government could not tackle the problems facing a population mired in poverty.
"Today we are obliged to note that the government has largely lost the ability to energetically and decisively solve the country's most urgent and painful problems," party leader Boris Gryzlov told delegates at a Moscow congress.
The party's pledge most likely to find popular support is its demand to lower prices Russians pay for electricity and gas. Energy prices, regulated by the government, have risen in the past few years.
Gryzlov, who currently serves as interior minister, attacked the gradual erosion of Russia's huge energy subsidies.
Putin, elected president in 2000, has said cheap energy is the birthright of oil-and-gas-rich Russia, a remark made in open defiance of a key demand by the WTO which wants prices to reflect market levels.
"To demand that Russian energy prices be raised to world levels to deprive our industry of their ability to compete," Gryzlov said. "This is like demanding bananas cost the same in Brazil as they do in Finland."
The party said it would push for a cabinet of party members, and would exclude Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov and German Gref, who is in charge of economic planning and a driving force behind free market reform. Neither is a member of United Russia.
Gryzlov criticised powerful industrialists and financiers whose influence soared after they helped finance Boris Yeltsin's win over the Communists in a presidential election in 1996.
"Because of the absence of a party regime in Russia, an unusual role has been given to major financial groups," Gryzlov said. "Their weight has allowed them to take on many political functions...We need parties that are also companies, and not companies that are also parties."