TUNIS, Tunisia (AP) — Tunisians cast ballots Sunday in the country’s third presidential election since the pro-democracy revolt known as the Arab Spring, while one of the candidates remains in prison.

Voters are deciding who among three candidates will lead the North African nation for the next five years — President Kais Saied, imprisoned businessman Ayachi Zammel or Zouhair Maghzaoui, a leftist who supported Saied before choosing to run against him.

Saied, the 66-year-old first-term president, is considered the heavy favorite largely because of a crackdown on his opponents and the moves to remove checks and balances on his executive power.

The majority of the opposition is boycotting the contest in protest of what they call an absence of democratic conditions for free and fair elections.

Dozens of candidates had expressed interest to challenge Saied and 17 submitted preliminary paperwork to run in Sunday’s race. However, members of the election commission, all of whom are appointed by the president, approved only three. They ignored a court ruling ordering them to reinstate three other challengers.

Tunisians vote in an election with one of President Saied's 2 challengers in prison | iNFOnews.ca — CORRECTS TO NASIR DISTRICT – Tunisian President and candidate for re-election Kais Saied and his wife Ichraf Chebil Saïed, leave a polling station after casting their votes, at Nasr district of the capital Tunis, Tunisia, Sunday, Oct. 6, 2024. (AP Photo/Anis Mili)

Zammel was later imprisoned and charged with forging voter signatures to qualify for the ballot, which his attorney denied.

Tunisia’s presidential election is its third since protests led to the 2011 ouster of President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali — the first autocrat toppled in the Arab Spring uprisings that also overthrew leaders in Egypt, Libya and Yemen.