London's Evening Standard to go Free

"In 2003, Lebedev stood as a candidate for elections to the Mayoralty of Moscow and the State Duma. He received 13% in the Mayoral elections, losing to the incumbent Yuriy Luzhkov, but won a seat in the State Duma on the Rodina party list (he was actually number one on the Moscow regional list of the party). In Duma, he initially moved from conservative "Rodina" to the pro-Government United Russia fraction,] but after Rodina was merged into the larger socialist coalition Fair Russia, he made his return and now is one of the party leaders.

Lebedev, together with the former President of the Soviet Union, Mikhail Gorbachev, is the owner of 49% of Novaya Gazeta, one of the most vocal newspapers critical of the current Russian Government.

After the assassination of a prominent Novaya Gazeta journalist Anna Politkovskaya Lebedev wrote an article praising the talents of Politkovskaya and suggesting that the assassins were actually trying to target the good names of her opponents.] He pledged 25 million Russian rubles (around US$1mln) for the information leading to catching the assassins. This is largely due to his moderate political views.

Lebedev is a founder and the President of the National Investment Council, a non-political and non-Government organization working to improve the investment sentiments in Russia, protecting interests of the Russian business abroad and fighting the negative sentiments towards Russian business.

In September 2008, Russian politician Mikhail Gorbachev has announced he is going to make a comeback to Russian politics along with Alexander Lebedev.[Their party will be called the Independent Democratic Party of Russia.