DAKAR (Reuters) - President Alassane Ouattara will face three challengers when he seeks re-election on Saturday after a decade in power. But his main rivals, former president Henri Konan Bedie and former prime minister Pascal Affi N’Guessan, have urged their supporters to boycott the poll and prevent it from happening.The 78-year old former executive of the International Monetary Fund has said he is running against his will. He announced in March that he will not seek another mandate. However, he revised his position five months later following the sudden death of his handpicked successor. “I had planned my life after the presidency. This is a real sacrifice for me,” Ouattara said in August, announcing his decision to run for a third term, adding that it was due to a ‘force majeure’. Seen as the favourite to win, Ouattara’s instincts have been honed by three decades in the messy fray of Ivorian politics.At 86 years of age, Bedie, Ivory Coast’s president from 1993-1999, was counted out by some, who expected his PDCI (Democratic Party of Ivory Coast) to name a younger presidential candidate this year. But he won the PDCI’s nomination with more than 99% support from party delegates. His strength in the general election remains to be seen. The PDCI, the party of Ivory Coast’s founding president Felix Houphouet-Boigny, has been locked out of power since the 1999 military coup that overthrew Bedie. He and Pascal Affi N’Guessan called for a boycott of the election at a joint news conference in Abidjan on Oct. 15.