MOSCOW, August 1 (RIA Novosti) - The Patriots of Russia, which is led by Gennady Semigin and was officially registered as a political party on July 29, intends to unite all left-wing patriotic voters and challenge the Communist Party and Homeland, a popular daily reported Monday.

Gazeta wrote that the Patriots had six months to meet the requirements of the new law on political parties if it wanted to run in the 2007 parliamentary elections. The party will have to set up divisions in at least half of Russia's 89 regions and increase the number of its members to 50,000.

If it fails, its registration will be annulled. But if it succeeds, the split of the Communists will become a reality.

A long conflict between Semigin and Communist leader Gennady Zyuganov preceded the creation of the new party. After the Communists' poor performance at the 2003 parliamentary elections, Semigin, the chairman of the executive committee of the National Patriotic Union, a movement uniting various left-of-center organizations, proposed removing Zyuganov from his post. Zyuganov in turn accused Semigin of trying to break the party up on the Kremlin's order. As a result, the latter and his supporters were expelled from the party.

Last summer, the exiles announced that they intended to set up the All-Russian Communist Party of the Future. Ivanovo region Governor Vladimir Tikhonov was to be installed as leader, but the organizing committee did not conceal that their "ideological leader" was Semigin.

The party was registered six months ago, but has still not become a full-fledged entity, experts told the paper. So in May Semigin set up the Patriots of Russia.

Alexei Makarkin, the deputy director general of the Center for Political Technologies, said Semigin would not so much rival the Communists, who pose no threat to the Kremlin, as Dimitry Rogozin's left-wing patriotic party, Homeland. And the incumbent authorities would like to diminish his influence.