Only 38 percent of Morocco’s 15.8 million registered voters bothered to cast a ballot. Those who did handed the Authenticity and Modernity Party (PAM) the most seats in parliament, though nowhere near enough to rule alone.
According to final results announced by the Interior Ministry on Friday, PAM took 97 of the 395 seats in the House of Representatives. An outright majority needs 198. Under the constitution King Mohammed VI must name the prime minister from the party that wins the most seats, so PAM gets the first go at forming a government, and will have to find partners to do it.
A comeback and a slide
The monarchy-aligned PAM, founded in 2008 by Fouad Ali El Himma, a friend of the king, has long been seen as a counterweight to the Justice and Development Party (PJD). That moderate Islamist party led the government for a decade before collapsing to 13 seats in 2021. This time it quadrupled its haul to 54.
A coalition between the two rivals looks unlikely. The PJD has said it will stay in opposition, which leaves PAM expected to turn to the monarchist Istiqlal party, which finished third, and others.
PAM’s senior partner in the outgoing coalition, the National Rally of Independents (RNI), fared badly, dropping from 102 seats to 66.
Who stayed home
The turnout was the second lowest since Mohammed VI took the throne in 1999. Only 2007, at a record-low 37 percent, was worse, and the figure is sharply down from roughly 51 percent in 2021. Analysts blame disengagement after last year’s youth-led protests over jobs, healthcare and education, and after the deadly attempts by large groups of migrants to reach Spain’s enclave of Ceuta in July.
Two names are floated for prime minister, both from PAM. Fouzi Lekjaa heads Morocco’s football federation and is budget minister. Fatima Ezzahra Mansouri is mayor of Marrakech and minister of national planning, urban planning, housing and urban policy; she would be the country’s first woman in the post.
Whoever gets the job will oversee billions of dollars in investment as Morocco prepares to cohost the 2030 World Cup with Spain and Portugal.
