Marruecos nombra un nuevo Gobierno “fuerte” y “armonioso”

20 days after Morocco's triple election, Morocco now has a new interim government composed, for the most part, of three political parties: the National Rally of Independents (RNI), followed by the Authenticity and Modernity Party (PAM) and Istiqlal.

This announcement was made by the president-designate, Aziz Akhannouch, who stressed that the new formation will be "strong and harmonious" and will respond to the expectations of citizens in the new post-covovida era. 

In this new phase, the RNI, with 102 seats, will lead the government in coalition with the WFP with 86 seats and the Istiqlal with 81 seats. Thus, the new formation has a large majority of 269 members out of the 395 members that make up the total number of the House of Representatives. 

In this regard, the three party leaders, Aziz Akhannouch, Abdellatif Ouahbi and Nizar Baraka, declared at the subsequent press conference that they would "work united and strong" to try to move forward and make "the New Development Model" and other social and industrial projects that could not be implemented during the political mandate of the PJD Islamists.

Morocco is thus facing its new political phase in an unprecedented way, as this is the first time in the history of the Alawi kingdom that it has managed to form a government with just three political parties, which will facilitate political decision-making in the country's internal and external affairs. 

On the opposition side, the bench will be made up of several parties with different ideological profiles. On the PJD's side, the Islamists have not managed to form a parliamentary group after winning 13 seats, a setback for the Islamic formation which, despite knowing that the estimates gave it a significant loss of votes, was not expected to be so serious.

Istiqlal's secretary general, Nizar Baraka, stressed that the coalition "will give a new impetus" to reforms to confront the current economic situation, which is "severely marked by the health crisis caused by the pandemic and which "limits the room for manoeuvre".

These 13 seats, moreover, suggest that it will not be able to exercise a strong opposition. For its part, the Progress and Development Party (PPS), led by Nabil Benabdellah, suffered a serious defeat, failing to win a single seat in its district. However, the 21 seats won will allow it to form a stronger parliamentary group capable of leading the opposition. 

On the other hand, the Socialist Union of Popular Forces Party (USFP), having no other option but to form a government with the current government, has ended up in the opposition. 

Under Akhannouch's government proposal, it is the turn of Morocco's King Mohammed VI to appoint the designated executive. Subsequently, the new government programme will be presented, which will be voted on in the next investiture session, thus beginning a new, unprecedented political stage in the country.