The diastereoselective formation of a meso-dinuclear Ru(ii) complex of a novel bis-bidentate ligand is reported along with its electrochemical and photophysical properties. The design of the ligand, with its parallel coordination vectors, induces a diastereoselectivity of 1 : 13 : 1 [ΛΛ : (ΛΔ or ΔΛ) : ΔΔ] for the dinuclear complex.