The Moroccan Justice and Development Party hinted at resorting to the Constitutional Court after the House of Representatives voted, in a session that lasted until the early hours of Saturday morning, on a law to abolish the threshold and change the electoral denominator.

The electoral denominator is the rate at which the seat distribution is calculated. This is the method applied in Morocco and in many countries that adopt proportional proportional voting.

The Justice and Development Party, which leads the government coalition, faced this amendment, while the rest of the parties, including those belonging to the government majority, supported it.

These teams proposed abolishing the threshold and calculating the electoral denominator on the basis of those registered in the electoral lists and not on the basis of the voters, as usual, during the discussion of the organizational law of the House of Representatives, months away from the third elections in the country after the February 20 movement and the amendment of the constitution.

The state of controversy and discussion shifted to social media, as activists considered what was happening as an attempt to weaken the Justice and Development Party in the upcoming elections and control the electoral results, while others saw it as a mere partisan struggle over positions and positions.

Have the majority and opposition parties emerged, having all agreed to vote for the benefit of the new electoral denominator based on the calculation of all ...

Posted by Abd Al-Ali Al-Wadghiri on Friday, March 5, 2021

Partisan disputes

The head of the parliamentary team of the Justice and Development Party, Mustafa Brahimi, described this amendment in his speech to the House of Representatives as "unconstitutional," considering that the government lost its majority after parliamentarians representing the majority parties voted on this amendment, which the government opposed, and then Article 103 of the constitution, related to it, should be activated. Giving confidence to the government or withholding it from it.

He said that adopting the electoral denominator on the basis of the registrants is a "crime against democracy and the right of institutions," and "punishes the lazy parties that have no effect in society except on the occasion of elections."

For his part, Muhammad Hajira, on the authority of the opposition PAM team, attributed his party’s adoption of this amendment to the right of smaller parties to ensure their representation in parliament, considering that it is not exclusionary and allows all political parties to enter parliament.

On the other hand, Tawfiq Kamil said of the Constitutional Assembly - which is within the government majority - that voting in favor of this amendment expresses the spirit of solidarity, and rejecting the marginalization of others by placing legal obstacles and barriers from exclusionary thresholds in the name of the numerical majority at the expense of the qualitative plurality.

# The electoral divider, my personal position:


I support counting the votes based on the number of registered

persons,

which will allow a real dynamism to be broadcast in the political scene and allow political expressions to strengthen their presence.


Talking about the danger of Balkanization is a populist and totally unscientific talk. A calculation can be done that will confirm this matter and all the digital data is available.

- Ibtissame AZZAOUI 🇲🇦 Ibtissame Azzawi (@Ibtissame_azz) February 28, 2021

Constitutional Court

Professor of political science at the University of Sidi Mohamed bin Abdullah in Fas, Ismail Hammoudi, said - in an interview with Al Jazeera Net - that resorting to the Constitutional Court is one of the legal mechanisms available before the Justice and Development Party, and in this case the court will be facing a political test more than it is a legal and constitutional one. The test of victory for the democratic option and its strengthening.

Omar Cherkaoui, professor of constitutional law at the University of Hassan II in Casablanca, was surprised by the Justice and Development Party's hinting that it would go to the Constitutional Court to decide on a law that would pass by its nature to this court.

He said - in a call with Al Jazeera Net - that "the House of Representatives law is an organizational law, and the constitution stipulates that all regulatory laws are compulsorily referred, once they are finally approved in Parliament, to the Constitutional Court."

#Morocco The General Secretariat of the Justice and Development Party renews its assertion that adopting the electoral divider on the basis of those registered in the electoral lists violates the essence of the democratic process pic.twitter.com/0XPNF0souV

- EL OTMANI Saad dine (@Elotmanisaad) March 5, 2021

Distracting the political scene

162 deputies belonging to 7 parties from the majority and the opposition voted on the Organic Law of the House of Representatives, which includes the amendment of the electoral denominator, while 104 deputies, all of whom belong to the Justice and Development team, voted against it, and a member of the Left Federation abstained from voting.

Ismail Hammoudi said that voting in favor of the amendment of the electoral divider on the basis of the registrars reveals the desire of some parties within the parties and within the centers of power to prevent the Justice and Development Party by all possible means from a third term, including those that may appear against the democratic option.

Regarding the implications for the political process, Hammoudi said that this amendment will further disperse the political scene, which will lead to difficulty in building alliances inside and outside the government.

According to him, this threatens the stability of institutions in the future and will increase the interference of authoritarian centers to control the course of the political process.

Hammoudi indicated that the new denominator will not guarantee that the Justice and Development Party will not occupy the first place in the upcoming elections, considering what happened during the amendment of electoral laws as an indication of the setbacks that could occur after the elections and the announcement of the results, including the retreat from Article 47 of the constitution, related to appointing the prime minister from the party. Leader of the elections.

"Calculating the

denominator of

electoral registrars is based on

shad and

has no basis in international comparative testing ,

"


Dr. Mohamed Manar Busk


semi -

partisan consensus to make this amendment in the

face of

rejection of the

Justice and Development Party.

The result is a reduction in the access of any party to two seats in the same district, and the granting of chances for smaller parties # the elections

- Sabah Al-Amrani (@ ghs1zPu4lOK16Jv) March 5, 2021

Ranking will not be affected

For his part, Omar Al-Sharqawi said that the electoral denominator is part of the rules of electoral laws that are inherently conflict laws with which some defend their electoral interests in the face of others.

He pointed out that those who are demanding the amendment of the electoral denominator are not a group of angels, but rather politicians trying to win large spots in the representative scene, and then the question in his view is, "Was the amendment adopted democratically and within the institutional space, or was it done in a different way?"

Al-Sharqawi ruled out the existence of any substantial impact of this amendment on the results of the upcoming elections, explaining that this denominator will not affect the arrangement of the parties in the elections, but can affect the difference between them in the number of parliamentary seats, in his view what a party such as the Justice and Development might lose in electoral districts in which it enjoys many votes He won in circles at the bottom of the ranking.

And he believed that what is happening in terms of controversy and noisy debate is nothing but an imaginary battle, and instead of talking about accountability and accountability, political parties hide behind the discourse of grievance and collective mourning because of seats they may lose in some locations and win in others, according to his expression.