Gaston Flosse Photo: AFP
The five-year ineligibility period of French Polynesia's veteran politician Gaston Flosse has lapsed, allowing him to run for office again.
He was barred in 2014 after being given a suspended prison sentence for running a vast phantom job scheme over which he lost the presidency.
He was declared ineligible for three years but in 2016 he was sentenced to two more years' ineligibility when he was convicted for using public funds to run an intelligence service.
An attempt to serve the bans concurrently was quashed by the French justice ministry.
Last month, he was again declared ineligible after the criminal court convicted and fined him and the current president Edouard Fritch for abusing public funds for billing the Pirae council for private water supply.
However, they both appealed, which means that the sentence is suspended, allowing Flosse to contest the municipal election in March if he so wishes.
President Fritch was given no ineligibility but only ordered to repay $US50,000 to the municipality of Pirae of which he is the mayor.