Russian Court Rejects Soviet-era Dissident's Kremlin Bid

  15 January 2008

Russia's Supreme Court has ruled that former Soviet dissident Vladimir Bukovsky cannot run for the Russian presidency.

Bukovsky had appealed an earlier decision by the Central Election Commission that he could not be a candidate because he had not been living in Russia for the past ten years.

The court agreed with the election commission.

Bukovsky returned to Russia two months ago. He had lived in exile since 1976, when Soviet authorities exchanged him for Chilean Communist leader Luis Corvalan. Bukovsky said he had agreed to try to run for president in an effort to draw attention to what he called Moscow's return to Soviet-era repression.

Russian President Vladimir Putin's hand-picked successor, Dmitri Medvedev, is expected to win by a large margin in the March election.

Bukovsky became famous after exposing the role of psychiatric hospitals in Soviet efforts to silence critics. He was in and out of labor camps for at least 12 years before being exiled.

Some information for this report was provided by AP.

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