Tunisians began casting their votes Saturday for a parliament with virtually no power to build a presidential system that Qais Saied has sought to establish since he decided to monopolize power in the country in the summer of 2021.

Opposition political groups in the North African country have called for a boycott. They say the poll is part of a "coup" against the only democracy to have emerged from the 2011 wave of uprisings across the region.

At a polling booth in central Tunis as the polls opened at 8:00 AM (0700 GMT), around 20 journalists looked on as two voters waited to cast their ballots.

The vote follows three weeks of barely noticeable campaigning, with few posters in the streets and no serious debate among a public largely preoccupied with pressing financial concerns, with the country's economic woes going from bad to worse, with 10 percent inflation. Frequent shortages of milk, sugar and petrol fuel a growing wave of emigration.