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Medvedev also proposed reducing the number of signatures a candidate must collect to get on the presidential ballot from 2 million to 300,000. He also promised to ease rigid state control over TV, saying one of the three nationwide TV stations should be allowed to shape its coverage without government interference. The opposition, however, would only be able to take advantage of the new procedures in the next election cycle. "Medvedev's address is like an injection in an artificial limb," tweeted Oleg Kashin, a columnist at the Kommersant daily. Boris Nemtsov, an opposition leader, said Medvedev's proposals were welcome but not enough, adding that Saturday's rally will continue to push for the latest election to be voided and rerun. "We wouldn't have heard any of these proposals if there hadn't been protests," Nemtsov said on Ekho Moskvy radio. Vladimir Ryzhkov, whose liberal Parnas party had been denied registration, said the changes proposed by Medvedev were long overdue, but added they would mean little if the authorities continued to reject demands for a vote rerun. On the Internet, many argued for keeping pressure on the government to bring more democratic changes. Over 39,000 already have signed up on Facebook for Saturday's rally. "Well, they threw some bones to us," Elena Panfilova, head of Transparency International in Russia, said on Twitter. "Now we can either try to build something good out of them or demand the rest of the skeleton."
[Associated
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