Ivory Coast’s opposition is weighing its options after four of its top figures were excluded from the October 25 presidential race. – The option of a surrogate candidate — as seen in Senegal when opposition firebrand Ousmane Sonko endorsed Bassirou Diomaye Faye in the presidential ballot after he was barred from running himself — is off the table for both the PDCI and Gbagbo’s PPA-CI. “Gbagbo never imagined such a scenario.