From Vladimir Putin’s bikini-clad fan club to Silvio Berlusconi’s beauty queens, why are male politicians still using women as pawns in the power game?

What truly sways the outcome of a general election? Parliamentary debates? Economic policy? An enlightened approach to immigration? Or an 18-year-old in a bikini? Russian prime minister Vladimir Putin is banking on the latter. Back in July, in a publicity stunt nicknamed Putin’s Sexy Carwash, his female political fan club took to the streets of Moscow to soft-soap cars while wearing swimwear. Not to be outdone, Putin’s presidential counterpart Dmitry Medvedev’s supporters offered to strip in public to aid his chances of re-election.

It’s not just their fan clubs that are packed with young, beautiful women either – in 2007, Putin recruited several young gymnasts with no political background to his party, to improve its image ahead of the parliamentary elections. Gymnast Alina Kabaeva, who was 24 at the time, had only just retired from her sporting career and had zero political experience. She has since become a celebrity, gracing the cover of Russian Vogue while remaining an MP. Seven-time Olympic medal-winning gymnast Svetlana Khorkina was also elected representative in 2007. “It’s very good to be sexy,” she said at the time. “I posed naked for Russian Playboy when I was 17 or 18. Why not if you’ve got something to show? I will work as a part of Russia’s strongest political team.”

Capitalising on female wiles to win votes is not just a tactic employed by Russian political minds. Far from it: 1,500 miles away, Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi has been engaging in serious political sexism for years. Indeed, the Italian PM, who returned to power in 2008, is infamous for it. This is a man who, on a visit to the New York Stock Exchange in 2003, declared one reason to invest in Italy was that, “we have beautiful secretaries… superb girls,” and last year suggested that women looking to secure their financial future should, “look for a wealthy boyfriend.”

When he’s not highlighting the assets of his country’s women to win international investment, the 74 year old – who owns or controls 95% of the Italian television market – broadcasts his sexist agenda on TV. Take Striscia La Notizia, a news programme on a Berlusconi-owned station, where voluptuous, scantily clad women dance between segments. Remember: this is a news show. The channel’s own website declares, “As part of the programme’s cast, two young women dance on a table and are essential to the structure of the show, in that they serve as a reminder that this is entertainment.”

POLITICAL EYE CANDY

Berlusconi is also famous for his attractive female inner political circle. While it would be ridiculous to suggest that beauty should affect anyone’s political ability, it has to be said that some of his recruitment choices are suspicious. Take Mara Carfagna, a former glamour model and selfprofessed “anti-feminist”, who he appointed as his minister for equal opportunity. Carfagna, who once came sixth in a Miss Italia contest, was welcomed into his Forza Italia party in 2000 and made a minister four years later, despite a complete lack of political experience. In her ministerial post for equal opportunity, Carfagna has opposed gay marriage and said that, for women, independence is less important than discipline. She is joined by Nicole Minetti, a former dental hygienist and TV showgirl who Berlusconi met while having his teeth fixed. Within three months he had chosen Minetti to represent his party in the regional elections in Lombardy. There’s also Barbara Matera, the 30-year-old one-time soap star turned MEP who was part of Berlusconi’s initiative to recruit “young, new faces” into the European Parliament in 2009.

It’s not just Putin and Berlusconi who are at it. In Norway, glamour model and Miss Norway winner Tove-Lill Løyte is a prominent youth politician who was the elected leader of the opposition Progress Party’s youth wing. Løyte, who has spent time at Hugh Hefner’s Playboy Mansion, had the vocal support of the party’s male secretary general, Geir Mo. She is a hit in Norwegian tabloids, who regularly feature her in erotic poses (in one recent shot, Løyte posed in a bikini top and tiny denim shorts, holding an industrial hose and surrounded by inflatable elephants). In Kosovo earlier this year, after the presidential election was declared invalid, the male leaders of the two main political parties agreed on a “compromise candidate”, Atifete Jahjaga, who happened to be an attractive, 35-year-old woman with no political experience. Kosovans were baffled by the appointment.

No doubt many of the examples above have left you open mouthed. In 2011, a decade when we have 21 female political leaders worldwide (thanks tothe most recent election of Helle Thorning-Schmidt as prime minister of Denmark), it’s almost implausible that such powerful, developed countries would allow their leaders to engage in such openly sexist antics. If David Cameron suddenly began encouraging swarms of bikini-wearing women to rally support we’d be up in arms.

Is this really women's place in politics?