The winning party, made up of notables, businessmen and senior government officials, is led by the current Minister of Agriculture, Aziz Ajanuch

Debacle del partido islamista en Marruecos después de una década en el poder

photo_camera Elecciones en Marruecos

After a decade leading the Government, the Islamist Justice and Development Party (PJD) suffered a heavy defeat in the legislative elections held in Morocco, which gave the victory to the liberal centrist National Rally of Independents (RNI).

According to the provisional results with 96 % counted announced by the Minister of the Interior, Abdeluafi Laftit, the PJD dropped from first place to eighth place and won only 12 seats out of 395 in the House of Representatives (lower house).

The winner of the elections was the RNI, which jumped from fourth to first place with 97 seats, followed by the liberal Authenticity and Modernity Party (PAM), which won 82 seats, and the nationalist and historic Istiqlal Party (PI), with 78, while the PJD was left with 12, compared to the 125 it won in 2016.

Elecciones en Marruecos

With a turnout of 50.3% (8.7 million voters), eight percentage points higher than in the last elections, the results of the elections thus put an end to the dominance held since the Arab Spring of 2011 by the Islamist party, due to the attrition of the formation and internal divisions, as well as to the new electoral system that disadvantages the large parties.

In Western Sahara the highest turnout was recorded, ranging between 58 and 66 percent, while in the largest city and economic capital of the country, Casablanca, the lowest was recorded, 41 percent.

The winning party, made up of notables, businessmen and senior government officials, is led by the current Minister of Agriculture, Aziz Ajanuch, the second richest man in the country after the king, and must now seek alliances to form a government and reach the 198 seats that make up the absolute majority.

Ajanuch will appear this noon at a press conference to comment on his victory and on election night, hours before the announcement of the results, he only made a brief statement to the media to congratulate himself for the high turnout, which he translated into the will for change of the Moroccans after ten years of Islamist government.

"The people want an alternative", said the one who could be the next president of the Moroccan government, who advanced that this will of political change would be reflected in the results of the elections.

Elecciones en Marruecos

The leaders of the PJD denounced for their part an alleged electoral fraud, alleging a massive purchase of votes which, they said, they have already brought to the attention of justice, and protested that they were not provided with the minutes of the votes of the different polling stations.

"The minutes have been given to all the interveners of the different political parties," the Interior Minister said in this regard in his appearance to announce the results.

Some of the Islamist leaders also advanced to the press that in case of not winning the elections, the PJD will probably pass to the opposition, pending the decision of its executive at the meeting scheduled for this morning.

The debacle of the Islamist formation is such that not even the president of the outgoing government, Saadedin Otmani, obtained any seat.

Legislative, regional and local elections were held on the same election day, but the results of the latter will be communicated in the next few hours. The PJD will most probably lose the mayoralty of the cities where it governs: Rabat, Salé, Tangier, Kenitra, Meknés, Marrakech and Agadir.

The elections followed a reform of the electoral law passed last March, which eliminated the 3 % vote barrier to obtain seats, as well as the way in which they are distributed, resulting in a loss of seats for the largest parties.

Most of the parties, except the two that came first in the last elections (the PJD and the PAM), gained seats, as for example the RNI, which has 60 more, or the Istiqlal, which has gone from 46 to 78.

Another surprise was the rise of the Socialist Union of Popular Forces, which now has 35 seats, 15 more, and of the ex-communist Progress and Socialism Party (PPS), which gained 6 to 12 seats.

In the elections, according to the Minister of the Interior, 5,020 observers participated, 129 of them foreign, who will present their conclusions this Thursday and Friday.

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