Morocco voted yesterday in legislative elections marked by the crisis with Ceuta. Elections that renew the 395 seats in the House of Representatives and from which the Government for the next five years will emerge. The official results will be known today. Attention is focused on six leaders of the four parties that have governed the country in the last decade and who are running without polls to measure their strength, because in Morocco it is prohibited to publish voting intention surveys.
The liberal National Regrouping of Independents (RNI) leads the governing coalition together with the Party of Authenticity and Modernity (PAM), with a technocratic profile, and the nationalist Istiqlal. The Islamists of the Justice and Development Party (PJD), who headed the previous Executive, also appear. The king will appoint the head of government from among the members of the party that obtains the most seats.
The current prime minister, Aziz Akhannouch, is not running as a candidate, so the new president of the party, Mohamed Chouki, is one of the central figures of the party. His election as head of the RNI in February of this year was seen as an attempt to renew the leadership of the party in the face of the loss of popularity of the Executive. Chouki is also a deputy and runs in his native region, Boulemane, in the Fez region. The new president of the party has focused his electoral campaign on promising his electorate a plan to improve, between 2026 and 2031, the purchasing power of the population, public services and employment.
Among the heavyweights of the RNI is Rachid Talbi Alami, president of the House of Representatives since 2021 and candidate for Tetouan. A historic member of the party, Talbi Alami has a long political career: since 2002 he has been through different governments as Minister of Industry, Commerce and Telecommunications, Minister Delegate of Economic and General Affairs and Minister of Youth and Sports. Doctor in Management and Finance from New York University, he comes to these elections as one of the candidates with the most weight and experience. He has become one of the main defenders of the Government's balance and the RNI program.
The main partner of the RNI, which came second in the elections, the Party of Authenticity and Modernity (PAM), has a star signing for these elections: Fouzi Lekjaa (56), delegate minister of the Budget and leader of the Royal Moroccan Football Federation, who is credited with helping the 2030 World Cup take place in the country. Considered for years a technocrat independent of the parties, he has finally decided to run with the PAM. He is originally from Berkane, a town in the northeast of the country. Lekjaa is an agronomist, but he trained in one of Morocco's senior civil service schools, which allowed him to become Director General of Budgets in 2011 and, since the last elections, to be part of the coalition government. He is the PAM's main candidate to be the next head of Government due to his professional career and his relationship with the Royal Palace.
In 2022, Mohamed VI awarded him the second-class Ouissam Al Arch decoration after the good results of the Moroccan team in the historic World Cup in Qatar. The outgoing Budget Minister is seen as a technocrat focused on results and the impact of government actions. The president of the Football Federation embodies the PAM proposal that investment and economic growth also benefit citizens, with the focus on private investment and transforming black labor into formal employment.
In the PAM, with a profile contrary to that of Lekjaa, Abdellatif Ouahbi, one of the party's career politicians, stands out. Lawyer and deputy since 2011, he was secretary general of the PAM and has been Minister of Justice since 2021. Now he is running again for Taroudant North, his political stronghold. During the campaign he has defended a review of the laws to expand the freedoms and rights of citizens and has demanded a new relationship between the university and the labor market.
In the other party of the coalition government, Istiqlal, its leader, Nizar Baraka, current Minister of Infrastructure and Water, could be another of the surprises of the election night. An economist by profession, he descends from a well-known political family in the country and is the grandson of a leader of the independence movement during the Moroccan colonial era. The central lines of his campaign have been the defense of purchasing power and employment, while criticizing economic liberalism. Months before the elections, he distanced himself from the tripartite party to which he belongs to present himself as a conservative alternative, with the focus on family and traditional values, but also on the fight against corruption.
Among the parties that are most likely to win the elections is also the previous Executive, which could gain strength in 2026, despite the electoral setback in 2021, due to the current wear and tear and divisions within the government coalition. The former President of the Government, Abdelilah Benkirane, leader of the moderate Islamist party Justice and Development (PJD), was in office from 2012 to 2017. Now he wants to return to the political arena despite the fact that in 2021 he suffered an electoral debacle, going from 125 seats to 13. The PJD has focused its electoral discourse on the fight against corruption, monopolies and conflicts of interest. Like the rest of the parties, it has promised to improve the purchasing power of Moroccans, as well as employment, education and health.
