Edward Snowden in running to be Glasgow University rector

Whistleblower is one of four candidates for post previously held by Mordecai Vanunu and Winnie Madikizela-Mandela

Edward Snowden. Photograph: AP

Students at Glasgow University have launched a campaign to get Edward Snowden elected as rector.

The whistleblower, whose revelations about mass surveillance by US and UK intelligence agencies have caused worldwide controversy, is one of four official candidates for the three-year post, currently held by the former Lib Dem leader Charles Kennedy.

While Snowden is highly unlikely to take up his post in person, Glasgow's rectors are elected to represent students, chairing the university's ruling court. Previous rectors have included the Israeli nuclear whistleblower Mordecai Vanunu and Winnie Madikizela-Mandela.

Snowden will stand against the Scottish cyclist and inventor Graeme Obree; Alan Bissett, a pro-independence writer; and the Very Rev Kelvin Holdsworth, rector of the Episcopalian Cathedral Church of St Mary the Virgin in Glasgow. Voting is due in mid-February.

Lubna Nowak, one of the Snowden campaign team, said: "We're giving students a stage, a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to voice their own discontent with mass surveillance. By electing Edward Snowden, we're sending a clear message, also to our government, that we will not allow this kind of surveillance."