The Moroccan Ministry of Interior announced that the turnout in the parliamentary and local elections reached 50.18%, a slight increase from the 43% recorded in the 2016 elections.
Local media reported that Interior Minister Abdel-Wafi Laftit will announce the preliminary results shortly after midnight, with the final results to be released Thursday.
A statement by the Ministry of Interior said that the voting process took place in general under normal conditions in all regions of the Kingdom, with the exception of some very isolated cases in a limited number of voting offices.
The vote included - for the first time in the history of Morocco on the same day - the parliamentary elections (395 seats) and the local and regional elections (more than 31 thousand), which contributed to raising the participation rate, according to observers.
After the elections, King Mohammed VI appoints a prime minister from the party that obtains the largest bloc in parliament, and the prime minister-designate is supposed to form a new government for a period of five years.
Top contenders
The Justice and Development, the National Rally of Independents, Al-Istiqlal, and Authenticity and Modernity parties are the main contenders for this election.
The lists for the elections to the House of Representatives (the first chamber of parliament: 395 seats) include 6,815 candidates, while the lists for municipal and district council elections include 157,569 candidates.
Polling stations opened at 08:00 am, and voting continued until 19:00 local time (from 07:00 to 18:00 GMT), to receive 17 million and 983 thousand and 490 voters (out of about 36 million people).
It is the first time that general elections are held in Morocco on one day.
The Ministry of Interior said in a statement that the voting process "passes under normal circumstances" according to information received from the various regions of the Kingdom and its provinces, and added, "The participation rate at the national level, at twelve o'clock in the afternoon, reached 12%."