MOSCOW, March 31 (Xinhua) -- The Communist Party of the Russian Federation (CPRF) said Friday it plans to organize a protest against the government's economic policy next Saturday.
"We call upon all our fellow citizens, a wide range of state-patriotic forces to take to the streets and support the demand for a change in the socio-economic course," the party's Central Committee said in a statement.
About 8,000 people took to the streets in downtown Moscow on Sunday in a protest against corruption, organized by opposition leader Alexei Navalny. Similar rallies took place in some other cities.
Some participants in the rallies, most of which were not authorized, were arrested. Navalny has been put in custody for 15 days.
The party said in the statement that it should not allow Navalny to seize the initiative, as the CPRF "has been striving for a long time and resolutely to achieve a drastic change in the country's social and economic policy in the interests of the majority of the population."
The CPRF, numbering over 160,000 members, has 42 out of 450 seats in the State Duma, the lower house of the Russian parliament.
The party's leader Gennady Zyuganov participated in Russia's presidential elections in 1996, 2000, 2008 and 2012. He has not yet announced whether he would run for presidency again in 2018.
Navalny has already voiced his intention to participate in the 2018 presidential race.
