Morocco gives victory to the liberal party in the elections with the highest abstention of the last twenty years

The Authenticity and Modernity Party (PAM), a liberal political group and member of the outgoing government coalition, has been proclaimed the winner of the legislative elections in Morocco. These have been marked by an overwhelming abstention rate of 61.9%, the highest in twenty years, according to provisional data from the Moroccan Interior Ministry. Inevitably, the crisis in Ceuta has also marked the agenda of an election with a predictable result.

Almost nine hours after the polls closed, the Minister of the Interior, Abdelouafi Laftit, announced the lead of the party, which has obtained 97 of the 395 seats in Parliament. The PAM has prevailed over its coalition partners: RNI (National Rally of Independents), which goes from leading the executive to being the second force with 66 seats, and Istiqlal (nationalist), which maintains third place with 65 seats in the chamber. The results do not come as a surprise compared to the analysts' projections, which predicted the lead of the PAM followed by its coalition partners.

The PAM was founded in 2008 by Fouad Ali El Himma (among others), a schoolmate of King Mohammed VI and royal advisor. It has also been, for the last two months, the party of Fouzi Lekjaa, Minister of Budget, president of the Royal Moroccan Football Federation, and one of the figures who will have the most prominence in the new legislature, which will be focused on the 2030 Football World Cup that Morocco is organizing with Spain and Portugal.

The surprise of the day came from the Justice and Development Party (PJD, moderate Islamist), which scored 54 seats after the electoral collapse it suffered five years ago, when it fell from 125 to 13 seats. This defeat ended a decade of electoral dominance by the PJD, which had reached the government after the 2011 protests and had once again prevailed in the 2016 legislative elections.

There was also joy in the ranks of the left which, despite its minority presence on the Moroccan political scene, achieved significant progress with eight lawmakers.

The seats are distributed according to a system calculated not based on valid votes, but on the number of registered voters in each constituency, which favors fragmentation and prevents absolute majorities.

Abstention, the great protagonist

The experts' projections that announced an overwhelming abstention as proof of the distance between the political class and Moroccan society have been spot on. This Wednesday's elections saw a turnout of only 38.08%, the lowest figure since 2007: about six million voters out of the 15.8 million registered on the electoral roll, a necessary condition for voting in the country. Contrary to the general trend, the high turnout of voters in Western Sahara should be highlighted, estimated at 77% in Laayoune and 61% in Dakhla.

Relations with Spain

Fatima Zahra El Mansouri, Minister of Housing and member of the PAM leadership, has stated that the country's relationship with Spain is "historic and necessary" and has considered that bilateral relations "must be of a high level." "I know that relations between the two countries sometimes have ups and downs, but neighborhood imposes that relations must be of a high level, both in the economic sphere and in the commercial and diplomatic ones," said El Mansouri, who is among the names of potential future prime ministers, in her first press conference after the party's victory.