Los Hermanos Musulmanes podrían lanzar un nuevo partido político en Marruecos

The debacle of the Justice and Development Party (PJD) in the last parliamentary elections marked a before and after for the Islamist formation. The party that won the elections in 2016 lost almost 80% of its votes, crying out for change. Since then, some, such as Aziz Rabbah, former Minister of Equipment and Transport and Minister of Energy, Mines and Sustainable Development in the PJD government led by Saadeddine Othmani, have launched initiatives such as "Homeland First and Always".
 
This aims to "attract young people from inside and outside the country" to carry out proposals in terms of public and economic policies. Rabbah himself assures that he has no partisan role or links to any political party, although observers point in the opposite direction. Despite the former minister's assurances that this initiative will not become a party and that the aim is to continue working on civil activities and monitoring public policies and development programmes at the national and local levels, the reality could be quite different.

Following the heavy defeat of the Muslim Brotherhood's political wing in Morocco - the PJD - several analysts see this project as the breeding ground for a new party, or at least an Islamist propaganda tool to try to regain some of the ground lost in the last elections. However, Aziz Rabbah denies these intentions, adding that "we received many calls about whether the initiative paves the way for the creation of a new political party, and my answer was clear even to the brothers and sisters with whom we decided to establish this initiative".
 
Although the project has been separated from the political spectrum, and Rabbah himself has retired from political life, experts such as Sherifa Lemoire, a political science researcher at Mohammed V University in Rabat, believes that "although Aziz Rabah has announced his retirement from politics before, this does not mean that he is following this path", adding that "the emergence of this initiative today cannot be separated from the approach adopted by the Islamic current in Morocco", she said in a statement to The Arab Weekly. The researcher's conclusion on these movements is that "we are witnessing a prelude to the birth of a political party with a new Islamist orientation".

The perception among analysts is clear. The loss of confidence in the PJD has led to the emergence of this initiative that aims to win back the vote of those who punished the party in 2021 by dropping it from 125 to 13 seats. Thus, " Homeland First and Always " is understood as the bridge that the Justice and Development Party intends to have with the electorate that stopped trusting the party. To this end, Aziz Rabbah's project will continue to grow with the establishment of branches in various regions of the Kingdom, as well as agreements with various institutions and associations.