(Bloomberg) -- The Russian Communist Party held a rally in central Moscow calling for honest and fair city council elections as the newly energized opposition planned to skip mass protests this weekend for the first time in five weeks.

The rally started at noon Moscow time at Sakharov Avenue, the traditional spot for demonstrations, and senior party officials, politicians and State Duma members were scheduled to take part. About 4,000 people gathered during the first hour, according to Moscow police.

This weekend marks a lull in protests over the refusal to put opposition candidates on the ballot for city council elections, which sparked the biggest wave of unrest in the capital since 2011-2012. Last Saturday, as many as 60,000 people attended a demonstration in central Moscow to demand the excluded politicians be allowed to run, while over 2,000 people have been detained by riot police in recent weeks for participating in unsanctioned gatherings.

Attempts to get a permit to hold an opposition demonstration this Saturday were denied by city authorities, Andrei Morev, a local politician and member of the liberal Yabloko party, wrote on Facebook Thursday. He called instead for a series of individual street protests, a form of opposition that is legal.

The opposition plans to return to the streets next week en masse. While the city denied a permit for a rally in the center on Aug. 24, it authorized a meeting at the edge of Moscow in a working class neighborhood filled with Soviet-era residential towers.

The protests have continued despite the arrests of many of the opposition politicians on charges of organizing unsanctioned protests. Opposition leader Alexey Navalny is serving 30 days in prison for urging supporters to join an unauthorized action last month.

The Communists are one of four parties in Russia’s lower house of parliament but have seen their power wane since President Vladimir Putin was first elected in 2000. They currently hold less than 10% of seats in the chamber.

Just 11% of Russians said they would vote for the Communists in parliamentary elections, according to a recent survey by the Levada Center. The low level of support comes despite the ruling United Russia party losing popularity after it pushed through unpopular pension reforms last year, according to a July 18-24 survey of 1,605 people.

To contact the reporters on this story: Jake Rudnitsky in Moscow at jrudnitsky@bloomberg.net;Yuliya Fedorinova in Moscow at yfedorinova@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Torrey Clark at tclark8@bloomberg.net, Guy Collins

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