Madagascar’s presidential candidates (L-R) Lalao Ravalomanana, Andry Rajoelina and Didier Ratsiraka/AFP
The new electoral court set up last week met to “clean” up the list of 41 candidates approved by its predecessor in May.
The other two controversial candidates who have been dropped for the revised list published on the court’s website Saturday were the ousted leader Marc Ravalomanana’s wife Lalao, and former president Didier Ratsiraka.
Their candidacies, which did not meet electoral rules, have been internationally condemned and have delayed the much-awaited vote expected to lift the Indian Ocean island out of its political and economic mire.
The three had refused to stand aside even in the face of threats of sanctions.
The court’s move is sure to be welcomed by leaders of the 15-nation Southern African Development Community (SADC) meeting for their yearly summit in Malawi, where Madagascar is one of the top agenda items.
The coast is “now clear for the holding of credible elections whose result will be accepted by SADC,” a diplomat at the summit who asked not be named told AFP.
The African Union immediately welcomed the move in a statement, adding it should “mark the culmination of the process towards ending the crisis.”
France’s ambassador to Madagascar, Francois Goldblatt, tweeted he was glad to see “the conditions met for a normal and peaceful re-starting of the electoral process.”
Madagascar, heavily reliant on international aid, has been mired in political limbo since Rajoelina, a former disc jockey and ex-mayor of the capital Antananarivo, seized power in 2009.
He swore not to run for president but threw his hat in the race when the wife of his exiled rival Ravalomanana declared she would be a candidate.
Both pose a legal problem, since Rajoelina submitted his candidacy after the deadline and Lalao Ravalomanana had not lived in Madagascar six months prior to the nominations, as the election rules require.
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