By Alan Crosby
PRAGUE (Reuters) - If politics makes strange bedfellows, Czech-born porn queen Dolly Buster is one of a host of candidates among EU members who should feel right at home if they win seats in this week’s European parliamentary election.
Across Europe, sports stars, pop icons and even adult entertainment moguls are looking to join mainstream politicians on the benches of the legislature where they will work together on forging the continent’s policies.
Polls across 25 European states have shown an apathetic electorate for the June 10-13 election that makes little connection to the institution, leaving a vacuum for candidates with "star status".
Like many of the political newcomers, Buster, who is running in the Czech Republic as an independent under her married name, Nora Baumberger, is raising eyebrows as she travels the stump in low-cut dresses as tight as a sausage skin.
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"There are only 24 Czech deputies going to the European Parliament, and 23 of them will be men wearing grey suits," she told a news conference to kick off her campaign.
"I am here because I am one of the people. And I think it’s time for politics to change. It’s time for people to decide, and not just have things decided for them."
STAR STATUS
Dolly is among candidates like Oscar winning film director Andrzej Wajda of Poland, Portuguese Nobel Prize winning author Jose Saramago, Finnish motor racing driver Ari Vatanen (standing in France), Olympic decathlon gold medalist Erki Nool of Estonia and his compatriot, supermodel Carmen Kass.
Towering ice hockey star Peter Stastny has hung up his gloves in Slovakia to fight for a seat on behalf of the People’s Party, which has the backing of diminutive Prime Minister Mikulas Dzurinda.
The 47-year-old Stastny has 15 years experience in the North American National Hockey League but not a single day on parliamentary benches.
Polish voters can choose former soccer star, Grzegorz Lato, who took Poland to third place in the 1974 World Cup.
For a more direct connection to the stars, voters may instead opt for Miroslaw Hermaszewski, the only Pole who has flown to outer space as part of a Soviet crew in 1978 or Czech astronaut Vladimir Remek.
While high profile candidates may spark some interest in getting the electorate out to the polls, analysts say those who reveal more cleavage than concrete political plans are looking to capitalise on the current disdain for staid politicians.
"It is not surprising that so many celebrities are running. The electorate is distrustful of political elites due to recent waves of sleaze scandals and high unemployment," said Tomasz Zukowski, a Warsaw University sociologist.
But that does not mean those choosing a more traditional political road have no avenues either.
Seven former national prime ministers are running, including Italy’s Massimo D’Alema, while Jaroslaw Walesa, son of Lech Walesa -- leader of the Solidarity movement which toppled communist rule in 1989 -- is running in Poland.
Dieudonne, a French-African humorist, is standing on the "Euro-Palestine" list, which demands a withdrawal by Israel from the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip as well as the creation of a European security force to guard Palestinians.
A French court recently ruled Dieudonne could not be punished for a controversial sketch portraying an Orthodox Jew giving a Hitler salute.
Some Jews and anti-racist organisations had brought charges of racial discrimination over the skit, in which Dieudonne was dressed as an Orthodox Jewish settler in combat dress and skullcap, shouting "IsraHeil" and urging young viewers to join an "American-Zionist axis".
