"It is clear that going to the elections with our ranks divided is madness," Vladimir Bukovsky, 64, told reporters in St. Petersburg, where he was planning to meet with the leaders of two opposition parties, the liberal Yabloko and the Union of Right Forces (SPS).
Bukovsky spent a total of 12 years in prisons, labor camps and psychiatric hospitals in the U.S.S.R. for his anti-Soviet views. He has spent the last 31 years in the U.K.
In May 2007, Bukovsky agreed to stand in the 2008 elections after being nominated by a group of Russian journalists, writers and analysts.
The ex-dissident plans to raise the issue of a single united opposition candidate during his next trip to Russia in December.
Bukovsky said he personally knew the main opposition leaders, including SPS co-founder Boris Nemtsov, Yabloko leader Grigory Yavlinsky, and United Civil Front leader and chess grandmaster Garry Kasparov. He also plans to meet ex-premier Mikhail Kasyanov, who leads the People's Democratic Union party.
He said he was not connected to any party, claiming: "I have no personal ambition, only a willingness to help the opposition find its bearings."
As for his plans to run for president, Bukovsky said he would go through the registration stage, but expressed doubts over his chances of being permitted to run. However, he said that if he does get registration, he is likely to stage an election campaign.
"I will have to collect 2 million signatures," he said. "This was thought up deliberately to make it impossible to do. It is not physically possible," he said.
A writer, publicist and neurophysiologist, Bukovsky was released from prison in 1976 and deported to the United Kingdom, in exchange for Chilean Communist leader Luis Corvalan. The dissident was given Russian citizenship in 1992 by late president Boris Yeltsin.
Several opposition leaders were arrested in Moscow and St. Petersburg at the weekend during an anti-Putin march ahead of parliamentary elections due on December 2.
