Massi also participated in the first round of the 2005 presidential election, held along with the parliamentary first round on 13 March, as the FODEM candidate. Prior to the election, his presidential candidacy was rejected, along with a number of other candidates, by the Constitutional Court on December 30, 2004; however, on January 4, 2005, Bozizé announced that Massi, along with two other initially barred candidates, would be allowed to run. In the election, he placed fifth out of eleven candidates and received 3.22% of the vote. On April 21, Massi signed an agreement to support Bozizé in the second round of the election, and after Bozizé's victory, Massi became Minister of State for Equipment, Transport and Civil Aviation in the government of Prime Minister Élie Doté, which was named on June 19, 2005. In a cabinet reshuffle on September 2, 2006, he was instead appointed as Minister of State for Rural Development; he served in the latter position until he was excluded from the government of Prime Minister Faustin Archange Touadéra in January 2008.