At the party's founding convention, chairman Sergey Mironov expressed support for the direction given to the country by President Vladimir Putin, claiming that "we will not allow anyone to veer from it after Putin leaves his post in 2008". At the same time, he harshly criticised Putin's party United Russia and what Mironov called the largest party's "monopoly" of the nation's political, economic and administrative resources. Mironov characterised A Just Russia as a new "leftist political force" and a "hard opposition", saying that "if United Russia is the party of power, we will become the party of the people".