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's coalition, has been declared the winner of the legislative elections in Morocco. These have been marked by an overwhelming 61.9% abstention rate, 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 outcome.

Almost nine hours after the polling stations 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 are no surprise regarding the analysts' projections, which predicted the PAM's lead 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 is also, for the last two months, the party of Fouzi Lekjaa, Minister Delegate for the Budget, president of the 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 recorded 54 seats after the electoral collapse it suffered five years ago, when it dropped 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, achieves significant progress with eight legislators.

The seats are distributed according to a system that is 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 hit the mark. This Wednesday's elections saw only a 38.08% turnout, the lowest figure since 2007: about six million voters out of the 15.8 million registered in the electoral census, a necessary condition for voting in the country. Contrary to the general trend, it is worth noting the high turnout of voters in Western Sahara, estimated at 77% in Laayoune and 61% in Dakhla.