An ousted female Afghan lawmaker has mounted a hunger strike to protest her expulsion from parliament over alleged vote fraud in last year's parliamentary elections.

Semin Barakzai has staged her political protest for more than a week in Kabul in a tent outside parliament.

Dozens of lawmakers returned to parliament Saturday following a boycott of the disputed results of last year's elections.

Afghanistan's election commission, in an effort to resolve nearly a year of disputes over widespread graft in the September 2010 parliamentary polls, ousted nine politicians. Barakzai was one of them. She has vowed not to eat until she is reinstated.

The French news agency quotes a doctor as saying Barakzai is in very poor physical condition from the lack of food.