Abdelwafi Laftit, the Moroccan Minister of Interior, announced at dawn today, Thursday (September 24, 2026), hours after voting offices closed and counting operations began, in elections in which 28 parties and political alliances competed for 395 seats in the House of Representatives.
Voting participation rate was 38 percent
The number of registered voters in the electoral lists reached 15,801,162 voters, while the national participation rate reached 38.02%, compared to 50.35% in the 2021 elections.
The results showed that the Authenticity and Modernity Party won 97 seats, advancing to the top of the House of Representatives, followed by the National Rally of Independents with 66 seats, then the Istiqlal Party with 65, while the Justice and Development Party came fourth with 54 seats.
The Socialist Union of Popular Forces won 26 seats, the Popular Movement 29, the Progress and Socialism 19, and the Constitutional Union 17, while the Left Rally won 8 seats, the Democratic Forces Front 8, the Justice Front 2 seats, and the Unity and Democracy Front 1 seat.
Comparison with past elections
Comparison with the 2021 elections reveals a clear shift in the ranking of the four major powers. The National Rally of Liberals was in the lead at the time with 102 seats, followed by the Authenticity and Modernity Party with 87 and Al-Istiqlal with 81, while the Justice and Development Party only got 13 seats.
The most notable changes in the 2026 elections are the transition of the Authenticity and Modernity Party from 87 to 97 seats, an increase of ten seats, while the National Rally of Independents lost 36 seats, moving from 102 to 66. As for the Istiqlal Party, which was the third parliamentary force in 2021 with 81 seats, it fell to 65, losing 16 seats, but maintained its position among the top three forces.
Thus, the ranking of the three parties that topped the 2021 elections changed significantly. The Liberals moved from first to second place, and the National Rally of Liberals from second to first, while Istiqlal remained in third place with its parliamentary weight decreasing.
A strong return to justice and development
These shifts, in and of themselves, do not mean the transfer of specific votes from one party to another, as the number of seats is affected by competition in districts, participation rates, and the method of distributing seats. Therefore, the numbers reflect a change in parliamentary outcomes more than they alone prove the sources of the shift in voter behavior.
The most dramatic changes compared to the 2021 results were recorded by the Justice and Development Party, which rose from 13 seats to 54, an increase of 41 seats, thus returning to the top four places after it had fallen to eighth place in the previous elections.
This return gains significance given the path the party has taken during the last decade. In the 2016 elections, it won 125 seats, before it collapsed to 13 in the 2021 elections, which in turn resulted in the rise of the National Rally of Liberals to the lead with 102 seats. The 2026 result shows that the party has regained a large part of its previous parliamentary presence, even if its balance remains below its level in 2016.
Lakjaa and Al-Mansouri...two names proposed to lead the government
From before the start of the polls until the end of the electoral campaign, two names emerged within the Authenticity and Modernity Party in the informal discussion about the presidency of the next government, Fawzi Lakjaa and Fatima Al-Zahraa Al-Mansouri, which also reflects the transformation that has occurred in the party’s position on the political map since its founding in 2008 at the initiative of Fouad Ali Al-Himma, who was then Minister Delegate of the Interior before becoming an advisor to the King, and whose name was associated in its beginnings with confronting the rise of the Justice and Development Party.
Lekjaa, Minister Delegate in charge of the Budget and President of the Moroccan Football Federation, is at the forefront of the names circulating, especially after he officially joined PAM last July 25 and entered its political office, in a move that gave political weight to a figure whose public presence was linked to the management of public finances and the successes achieved by the Moroccan national team. He also heads the Morocco 2030 Committee charged with preparing for the joint World Cup with Spain and Portugal.
The second name is Fatima Zahraa Mansouri, Mayor of Marrakesh and Minister of National Territorial Planning, Reconstruction, Housing and City Policy since 2021, who since 2024 has been leading the Collective General Secretariat for Authenticity and Modernity.
Raising her name in this context gives an additional dimension to the discussion, as if she is chosen, she will be the first woman to head the government in Morocco. However, the arrival of a woman to this position will raise, in addition to political and partisan considerations, new protocol and constitutional questions, including the position of the Prime Minister in some official ceremonies of a religious nature that the King attends in his capacity as Commander of the Faithful.
This issue, if it occurs, remains linked to how the official protocol is organized for these occasions, especially prayers and religious events in which the arrangement of participants is subject to religious and protocol rules that have until now remained linked to the presence of men in the official ranks.
