The Constitutional Court in Ivory Coast has officially cleared the path for incumbent president Alassane Ouattara to seek a third term in next month’s presidential elections after rejecting the candidacy of two other key opposition leaders.

Clearing only four of the 44 candidates for the October 31 presidential elections, the court cleared the incumbent and his main challenger, Henri Konan Bedie from the historically dominant PDCI party, as well as former Prime Minister, Pascal Affi N’Guessan, and Kouadio Konan Bertin, a former prominent member of Bedie’s party. The Court however barred Ouattara’s predecessor, exiled former president, Laurent Gbagbo, and ex-speaker of parliament and former rebel leader, Guillaume Soro.

Earlier this year, Ouattara said he would step down and hand over to a younger generation of leaders in Ivory Coast. He reversed course after the sudden death in July of his anointed successor, Amadou Gon Coulibaly, saying he would run again “because of the challenges we face to maintain peace.”

Opposition activists have however staged sporadic protests across the country since Ouattara announced his bid, with critics stating that the Ivorian constitution only allows for two presidential Responding to this, the ruling Rally of Houphouetists for Democracy and Peace (RHDP) argues that a new constitution adopted in 2016 reset the clock allowing for the leader who has occupied office since 2011 to run again.

Criminal Cases in Ivory Coast Disqualified Soro and Gbagbo

The electoral commission had previously said that anyone convicted of a crime will be disqualified from running for the top office. To this end, the commission barred Soro from running as he was sentenced in April to 20 years in prison for “concealment of embezzlement of public funds,” while Gbagbo has been sentenced in absentia to a 20-year term over the looting of the local branch of the Central Bank of West African States during the 2010-2011 crisis in Ivory Coast.