He returned again to sail the "Justice and Development" ship.. Learn more about Abdelilah Benkirane

Five years after his dismissal from the presidency of the Moroccan government, Abdelilah Benkirane, 67, returned to the political scene again, as the new Secretary-General of the Justice and Development Party, succeeding Saad Eddine Othmani, who resigned from the party's general secretariat last September.

Less than two months after the Justice and Development lost the last legislative elections, and after a months-long political crisis, Benkirane obtained 1,012 out of 1,252 votes in the party’s extraordinary national conference, while Abdelaziz Ammari received 221 votes, and Abdallah Bouano received 15 votes. 4 votes cancelled.

Upbringing and formation

- April 2, 1954: Abdelilah Benkirane was born in the popular Akkari neighborhood in the Moroccan capital (Rabat). He belongs to a Sufi family working in trade, and he knew some of its children with Islamic knowledge.

His mother, Al-Alia Benkirane, was the first woman to ascend the chair of knowledge in the Qarawiyyin Mosque, and his uncles were from a Khazraj family that had settled in the city of Fez centuries ago.

Benkirane took from his mother an interest in public affairs, as she was a regular at meetings of the Istiqlal Party, and took from his father mysticism and attachment to the acquisition of religious knowledge and inclination to trade.

He received his religious education under the auspices of his father, so he memorized parts of the Noble Qur’an in al-Kitab.

He started his academic career at Kobeibat School and then Moulay Youssef High School, where he obtained his baccalaureate degree in 1973.

1979: He obtained a BA in Physics, then was appointed as a professor at the Higher School of Teachers in Rabat.

1988: He resigned from the school to establish and run a printing press and two private schools.

political experience

At the beginning of his life, he sympathized with leftist organizations (including the March 23 Movement), and he was close to the National Union of Popular Forces, at a time when he frequented the Independence Party.

1976: Benkirane joined the Islamic Youth Organization after the assassination of the socialist leader Omar Benjelloun, of which the organization was accused.

- Benkirane quickly rose through the ranks of the youth to become one of the leaders of the organization.

1981: Benkirane, along with the youth of his generation, decided to separate from the youth in protest against the way in which the leader, Abdel Karim Moti'i, managed the organization.

- The separated youth founded the "Islamic Group" movement, which, like all other Islamic groups at the time, was secretive.

1986: Benkirane was elected president of the movement with a majority of more than two-thirds. He led it for two consecutive terms (1986-1994), which were the most important in its history.

- After arrests in its ranks in the city of Meknes, the movement was forced to accept Benkirane's call to abandon the character of secrecy and work in public.

1988: In order to legalize the movement, Benkirane proposed changing its name after it was rejected by the official authorities, who considered that it was incompatible with a Muslim country, people and legislation, where the king was considered the "Commander of the Faithful", to become the "Reform and Renewal" movement.

- In 1990: Benkirane, with his late deputy Abdullah, took over a document in which the “Reform and Renewal” movement accepted the monarchy, and even acknowledged the Emirate of the Faithful, which establishes the religious legitimacy of the king and his regime in order to establish religious legitimacy for him, which obliges him to this legitimacy that justifies the Islamic movement to question him. them and try to compel him to act accordingly.

1992: Together with other leaders of his movement and outside it, he founded the National Renewal Party, but the authority refused to grant him a legal license, and its founders tried to integrate into the Istiqlal Party, but to no avail.

1996: Under the leadership of Benkirane, the late Dr. Abdel Karim Al-Khatib, the Secretary-General of the Democratic Constitutional Movement Party was contacted, and the consensus was reached on the involvement of the people of the Unification and Reform Movement wishing to participate in political work in the party (his name was later changed to Justice and Development).

- The movement entered into dialogues with some components of Islamic action, such as the Islamic Future League, the Islamic Sunrise Society (Rabat), and the Islamic Call Society, led by Abd al-Salam al-Haras (Fez).

1996: These dialogues led to a unity that produced the Unification and Reform Movement.

- November 14, 1997: Benkirane became a member of the House of Representatives for the city of Salé (adjacent to the capital Rabat) for 3 states (1997, 2002 and 2007).

1998: The party's name was changed from the "People's Democratic Constitutional Movement" to "Justice and Development".

The man, with his strong personality, continued his influence within the party, and contributed to many of its stances and to addressing many of the crises that faced him.

2008: Benkirane was elected Secretary-General of the Moroccan Justice and Development Party by 684 votes against his rivals Saad Eddine El Othmani (495 votes) and Abdallah Beha (14 votes).

Prime minister

November 25, 2011: His party ranked first in the legislative elections in Morocco, with 107 seats out of 395 seats, which is the total number of seats in the Moroccan parliament.

- November 29, 2011: King Mohammed VI appointed him head of government under a new constitution proposed by the king and adopted by a popular referendum in July 2011.

October 7, 2016: Benkirane led his party to win the legislative elections for the second time in a row, where it ranked first with 125 seats, followed by the Authenticity and Modernity Party with 102 seats.

October 10, 2016: The King received him at his palace in Casablanca and assigned him to form a government, in respect of the provisions of the Moroccan constitution, which stipulates that the king chooses the prime minister from the party that won first place in the elections.

Mid-March 2017: The King relieved him of forming a government, and the Royal Court announced that the King would assign a new figure from the Justice and Development Party to form it.

- The royal court said - in a statement - that the King "has taken note that the consultations carried out by the appointed Prime Minister, for a period exceeding five months, have not led to the formation of a government majority, in addition to the lack of indications that its formation is imminent."

Therefore, he decided "to appoint, as the new prime minister, another political figure from the Justice and Development Party."

Milk County and France Education

June 2018: Benkirane joined the popular boycott that Morocco witnessed, calling on Moroccans to stop boycotting milk because of its negative repercussions on the national economy and on foreign investment, as well as on small farmers.

- Benkirane's statements did not go unnoticed, but opinions were divided about them between those who considered them a betrayal of the boycotters who reject the monopoly of these companies in the market and suffer from high prices, and those who saw them as courageous and daring on the part of the man to tell the truth even if it affected his popularity.

July 2019: Justice and Development Representatives abstained from voting on an education reform bill, one of whose clauses would allow some subjects to be taught in French.

Benkirane addressed his party comrades with unprecedented descriptions, saying, "When I learned of the decision, I thought a lot about leaving the party, as I no longer feel that I am honored to belong to a party whose general secretariat takes this decision."

- Benkirane described what happened as "a joke of time" and a "scandal", as how "a party with an Islamic reference could abandon Arabic in education and replace it with the language of colonialism? This is a scandal," saying that he lived "one of the worst nights" when he heard what happened, This is the first serious mistake the party has committed since it entered the cycle of government management in 2011.

March 2021: Benkirane threatened to resign from the party if the government agreed to legalize cannabis (the drug of cannabis).

Ideas and visions

Benkirane believes in reform within the monarchy, which he sees as a safety valve and stability in Morocco, and also sees that the task of the Islamic movement is to participate in the establishment of religion without that dependent on access to power, and that if it asks for governance - even if to establish religion - it will be subject to what is happening on Politicians and rulers, and sees that access to power is the culmination of changing society.

- Benkirane is a controversial figure. His opponents accuse him of being lenient with the state and the regime's workers. His supporters respond to these accusations as the product of his institutional style of leadership, accelerating the movement towards advanced and difficult ideas and initiatives, and towards defusing the crisis between the Islamic movement and the state.

- He believes that if the monarchy is the guarantor of the unity of the Moroccan territory, then the Emirate of the Believers is the guarantor of the Islamic state of the state and not to deviate or fall into the clutches of secular theses calling for the elimination of any religious reference.

- Benkirane's interest in the da'wa and educational aspect did not affect his sense of and interest in the media issue as well. He worked as a publishing director for the newspapers Al-Islah, Al-Raya and Al-Tajdeed.

- Benkirane led a government composed of 4 parties of different political and ideological stripes, and believed that "Morocco will advance with the logic of cooperation and partnership, not with the logic of conflict and conflict."

- He did not care about the left-wing criticism of him by relinquishing his constitutional powers in the interest of the king, and says that he "came to serve his country in cooperation with the king and did not come to quarrel with him."

July 25, 2012: Benkirane stated that he did not intend to "chase witches", nor to pursue the corrupt and corrupt in their dens and dens, but rather came to power with the intention of reforming the country's deteriorating economic and social situation, and getting it out of the tunnel of the sustainable crisis that has been ravaging its joints and facilities for a long time.

Benkirane explained that "it is not possible to fight the rentier economy or eliminate corruption because the matter is difficult and complicated, and that he did not come to carry a lamp and search for spoilers in the pillars of the state ... because that would be a crime against the homeland."

- Despite the man’s allusion to the fact that corruption and rent-seeking have been throughout long periods of time as a constant policy and logic for the state, rather, a system of governance and its rulers from within it, his philosophy is based on fighting them according to what was stated in the noble verse “God pardons what has preceded, and whoever returns, God will take revenge.” from it” (Al-Ma’idah: 95).

Benkirane made difficult decisions that were described as "unpopular", such as the increase in gasoline prices, and his government achieved many achievements, especially in the social and economic files, but it failed - according to followers - to achieve progress in other files such as fighting corruption, addressing unemployment and reforming education.