Seven candidates have been approved to stand in the Central African Republic's December presidential election, including current leader Faustin Archange Touadera and two leading critics, the electoral body said on Friday.

President Touadera, who was first elected in 2016, is running for a third term - which was made possible by a 2023 change in the constitution.

Both of his top rivals on the ballot paper, former prime minister Henri-Marie Dondra and the main opposition leader Anicet-Georges Dologuele, had feared they would be barred from the election over nationality requirements.

Dologuele, who had previously made a tilt for the top job in 2020, had given up his French nationality in August to conform with the requirement - also imposed by the 2023 constitutional change - for candidates to hold only one citizenship.

But months after he abandoned his French citizenship, the courts stripped him of his Central African Republic passport in mid-October, prompting Dologuele to file a complaint to the United Nations human rights office on Wednesday.

Three candidates barred

Three candidates were scrubbed off the ballot paper on the grounds that they did not fulfil all the necessary conditions, the electoral body's chair, Jean-Pierre Ouaboue said.

A leading opposition coalition, the Republican Bloc for the Defence of the Constitution of March 2016, announced in early October that it would boycott the election citing lack of confidence in the preparations for the election.

Some 2.3 million voters are expected to cast their ballots on December 28, according to the national election authority.

Besides the presidential palace, seats are up for grabs in the national parliament, as well as in municipal and regional councils.

The CAR has seen a succession of conflicts, civil wars and military coups since independence from France in 1960.