In February 1998, King Hassan II received the Royal Palace in Rabat, the leader of the Socialist Union of Popular Forces, Abdul Rahman Al-Yousifi, and appointed him as Prime Minister (Prime Minister). Of them constantly, but we are all heading towards a stage that requires a lot of effort and effort in order to push our country forward. "
From that moment, Al-Yousifi and his party moved from the opposition to the government, and decades of conflict between this left-wing party and the Moroccan regime ended, and what is called in Morocco began with the experiment of consensual alternation or political transition.
After his retirement from politics sixteen years ago, Al-Yousifi left silence and avoided the media, until he got off the horses of life on Friday at the age of 96.
Virtual funeral
Quarantine conditions due to the spread of the Corona epidemic prevented Moroccans from depositing one of the country's most important politicians, the leader of consensual rotation and statesman as described by the Moroccan press. They compensated for this with posts and tweets on social media, mourning the late and recalling his positions in a virtual mass funeral procession in which various political parties, NGOs and unions participated.
At a funeral attended by a few close associates amid tight security, Abd al-Rahman al-Yousifi was buried in the Martyrs Cemetery in Casablanca near the grave of the late Abdullah Ibrahim, a symbol of the national movement and the third prime minister in Morocco after independence.
In a message of condolence to his widow, King Mohammed VI described Al-Yousifi as "a deaf person and a distinctive style, based on responsibility and a clear commitment to principles, sincerity and loyalty, an important stage in his country's modern history."
Busy life
Between his birth on March 8, 1924 in Tangier, northern Morocco, and his death on May 29, 2020 in Casablanca (center), Al-Yousifi lived a busy life breathing one lung after the other was removed in two surgeries in the 1950s.
He spent his life resisting anti-colonialism, being imprisoned in the prisons, an opponent in the ranks of the Socialist Union of Popular Forces (USFP), a stalker and an exile in France, a supporter of liberation movements and then a leader of the consensual rotation government in 1998.
After the king chose in 2002 the appointment of the technocratic minister of the interior, Idriss Jettou, as prime minister despite the leader of the Socialist Union party leading the legislative elections, Al-Yousifi considered this appointment a "departure from the democratic methodology" and decided to retire and end his political path.
Former Prime Minister Abdel-Ilah Ibn Kiran said in connection with Al-Jazeera Net that Al-Yousifi "is a great patriotic man, who served his country honorably and rightfully overcame what is necessary for all creatures, which is death. We ask God to forgive and have mercy on him."
Arab and international concern
Al-Yousifi was not only concerned with the concerns of his country, but he was inhabited by Arab and international issues and indulged in supporting liberation movements in the world, and his life in exile in France was full of political and legal struggles within the Arab Lawyers Union and the Arab Organization for Human Rights that he helped to establish in the early 1980s, and he also defended Palestinian militants Before European courts, he was a member of the International Court against crimes committed in Vietnam during the 1960s.
After returning from exile, following a general amnesty, the relationship between King Hassan II and Al-Yusufi became closer. In his memoirs, which his companion in the struggle, Mubarak, wrote in his paper, Al-Yousifi tells that Hassan II joked him when he first presented him to Crown Prince Mohammed (the current king) and his brother Prince Rashid, saying to them, "He is one of the biggest arms smugglers, where he used to hide them even while he was sleeping on the hospital bed in Spain to provide With the resistance and the Liberation Army in Morocco. "
Despite his departure from politics, the line of communication between him and King Mohammed VI, who was constantly monitoring his health, continued, and (the king) attended the inauguration of a street in his name in Tangier in July 2016, an event which Al-Yousifi said in his memoirs, "unprecedented in the history of Morocco". And left a mark on me. "
Major intersections
Abdul Hamid Jamaahry, a leader in the Socialist Union of Popular Forces and editor-in-chief of the Socialist Union newspaper speaking on the party's behalf, describes al-Yusufi as one of the men in whom an entire nation meets.
He says in connection with Al-Jazeera Net that the late "lived chaste and was strict with himself and his staff, but at the same time he carries an enormous ability to overtake and search for compatibility" therefore - explains my audience - in which the parties found a basic judgment and a man capable of formulating complex equations simply convincing everybody.
Jahmahiri, who was one of the few who passed away to his late resting place, notes that Youssefi "lived through major intersections, intersections in time between the struggle for freedom and independence and the struggle against tyranny and for democracy, the intersection between the major national and young leaders, and the intersection of time between the struggle over legitimacy" And the authority between its sharing and raising the people on the democratic struggle, and the intersection between the indigenous patriot and the internationalist leader who held Arab and international positions. "
This ability to fuse all these dimensions in one character makes Al-Yousifi - according to the public - "not only a statesman but a man of history."
And two years before the last departure, Al-Yousifi went out to record his testimony on an important stage in the history of Morocco in a three-part book “Hadiths in what happened” in which he tells his biography since he saw the light in a simple house in Tangier, northern Morocco, to retire from politics. Despite his caution while telling his memoirs, she remains a documented testimony of the events he experienced during his long and busy political career.