Sergei Mironov, speaker of the Federation Council and leader of the new party A Just Russia: Motherland/Pensioners/Life, said the party would foster healthy competition in Russian politics.
"By establishing our party, we have formed a new political environment," Mironov said.
The party was founded in October when the nationalist Rodina (Homeland) party, the Party of Pensioners, and the left-leaning Party of Life merged.
The alliance has said it will seek to challenge United Russia, the 'party of power' with a massive majority in the lower house of parliament, the State Duma, but that it strongly supports President Vladimir Putin.
Experts have dismissed the party as another Kremlin project designed to poach votes from leftist political forces.
Mironov said earlier the alliance would soon comprise about 500,000 people, which is a little more than the three parties' overall membership. But a large number of Rodina members in St. Petersburg and the Pensioners' branch in Tatarstan, and groups in other Russian regions have rejected A Just Russia over leadership claims by Mironov's Party of Life, the smallest of the three.
Speaking at a news conference devoted to the party's welfare initiatives Wednesday, Mironov said fighting poverty would be a chief objective for the alliance. "Raising the minimum wage to the subsistence level is seen as a solution to the problem of poverty. It is an illusion."
He proposed setting clear welfare criteria well above the subsistence level and using them to assess the government's performance.
