The French justice ministry has quashed hopes of French Polynesia's disgraced former president Gaston Flosse to be able to stand for office in two years.
A statement issued by the prosecution in Tahiti says a sentence making his ineligibility to hold office is cumulative, meaning that he won't regain his rights until July 2019.
Last week, the appeal court upheld his conviction for abuse of public funds, giving Flosse a suspended jail sentence and banning him from office for two years.
Gaston Flosse Photo: RNZ
The sentence will be added to an earlier one which banned him from office for three years until 2017.
Flosse had hoped that the two sentences could be served concurrently which would have offered him a chance to stand in the 2018 provincial election.
Now he would have to wait until 2023 when he turns 91.
His Tahoeraa Huiraatira party won an overwhelming majority in 2013 but a year later he was forced to resign because of a corruption conviction.
The party was subsequently weakened by rifts, resignations and expulsions, with many of its former members now being part of the new ruling party, the Tapura Huiraatira.