Rabat -

The sun had not yet gathered its threads, on a hot evening in late August, when Al Jazeera Net accompanied Muhammad Al-Abridi, a young candidate from the Left Federation Alliance, on his tour in the heart of the old city in Rabat, accompanied by a small group of his comrades in the struggle, and people's eyes were on The young group is full of curiosity, as the traditional campaign scenes have become few with the pandemic conditions and the need to respect health procedures.

With equanimity and hope for a future in which the voice of the youth reaches the elected institutions, Al-Abridi, 34, set out to roam the streets of his dirt community (Rabat Hassan), wearing a jacket bearing the emblem of the party that preferred to run for candidacy in its color, and armed with a lot of will and daring to present to the expected voters the ideas and promises of his party. electoral.

Muhammad al-Abridi, in the color of the left, is trying to persuade voters (Al-Jazeera Net)

Easy tumble bet

According to the monitoring of the parallel youth government, most of the political bodies entered the competition with well-known traditional faces that are considered electoral machines that harvest seats, according to their description, with the exception of some limited lists.

The youth government records a clear inability of some parties to rejuvenate their candidates and keep pace with general trends in Morocco, perpetuating the phenomenon of nomadism by competing to attract traditional names.

On the other hand, political observers recorded a noticeable increase in the number of young people nominated for benefits, in connection with some partisan trends that opened the way for this age group with the aim of political marketing, and the link between public support laws for political parties with the size of youth representation in local regulations.

Abdullah Al-Sibari, the Secretary General of the Federal Youth Authority, is watching over the details of the electoral campaign (Al-Jazeera Net)

engagement and conviction

Muhammad is going through the candidacy experience, discussing, clarifying, and trying to convince him of the importance of participation, voting and choosing. A few years ago, he was convinced to boycott the elections because he believed they were futile.

Al-Abridi told Al Jazeera Net, "My idea changed, and I was convinced that participation at the local level can change something, and that if many young collective advisers form city councils, cities can develop rapidly."

Muhammad leans to the left, and believes that he has answers to current questions, especially social ones.

Young people studying political sciences are involved with Muhammad in the campaign, and others deliberately put a volunteer label on their shirts, distinguishing them from the "campaign merchants." Among them is the young Imad Al-Sharqani (29 years old), a newcomer to politics, and believes that the time has come for active involvement and that conscious participation in political action A way to convey the voice of young people and their expectations.

Struggle and experience

In the city of Temara (near the capital), the young woman, Etimad Zahidi, is running her election campaign as a candidate for the list, in the color of the National Rally of Independents.

Al-Zahidi is a media engineer and a doctoral researcher in international law, despite her young age and 20 years of political experience.

Etimad Al-Zahidi: I expect that we will be closer to the citizen, whatever it was (communication sites)

She tells Al Jazeera Net, "I chose to work realistically, and I expect that we will be closer to the citizen, whatever it is. I am running in my district, and I have previously represented the residents in Parliament, and in the locality, the city of Temara is not an easy city and its residents are difficult to convince. I have a good echo and built relationships with the residents in the way I deal with different classes of society.

With the experience of Munadel Shabibi, 39-year-old Abdullah Al-Sibari said in an interview with Al-Jazeera Net that the benefits of the eighth of September are exceptional, and will have a significant imprint on the democratic path that the country is witnessing, and it must have the outputs of institutions capable of reaching the country to To safety.

Al-Sibari is a secretary-general for the Federal Youth Authority, who is running as an agent for the regional list in the Rabat region.

Al-Sibari, who does not hesitate to follow the campaign of his party and its list and follows up on all the details, expects to win the battle, raising the slogan of hope, "We hope that the benefits of 2021 will be fair to the youth, the true pole in achieving development."

persistence and persistence

Unlike previous figures who campaigned close to the center, Hussein Hraish, one of the young faces of the Justice and Development Party, chose to run in the Aszac region, in the Guelmim-Oued Noun region in southern Morocco, where the desert climate and the population are mostly nomads.

Al-Hussein is running for the legislative elections after the experience of a state in which he represented his region through the national youth list.

Harish told Al Jazeera Net, "The area here is hot and during the summer all people travel to neighboring cities, yet the campaign is going well, and it is mainly digital."

Al-Hussein is betting on continuity and investing his previous parliamentary earnings, and he is confident in winning.

From southern Morocco, Basazak, the young man, Mohsen Harish, is running a campaign to communicate with voters (Al Jazeera Net)

Youth is a constant battle

Al-Zahidi says that the participation of young people in it has been development and awareness, but it has not yet reached the country's aspirations for the power of youth in political work.

Al-Zahidi expresses her optimism that the next stage will be a stage of youth and a stage of realistic work.

For his part, Al-Sibari believes that the nominations exceeded what was allowed by the special youth list, which he did not work for during these merits.

He asserts that young people will have their say in the future, pointing out that the battle of youth is still going on, and that the electoral behavior of Moroccans still shows insufficient confidence in young people.

In the same context, Al-Hussein Harish says that the cancellation of the national youth list put the parties to a real test, recording a decline in the accreditation of young people and a limited number of candidates.

Harish believes that young parliamentarians contributed to giving parliament positive images, and distinguished themselves in their legislative performance.

As for Al-Abridi, he believes that in return for reluctance and indifference, some parties nominated young men in response to polish their image, and some of the participants do not go beyond being furnishing for regulations.

Al-Abridi added, however, that there are parties that bet on the actual participation of young people, pointing out that youth files are not the determinant in a climate in which money is used to lure the voter, and adds that even digital media do not achieve fair access to the voter on the grounds that whoever pays more will reach the largest number of voters.

Parliamentary elections in Morocco are witnessing fierce competition this year (Al Jazeera)

A political crisis, not politics

Tariq Boutibi, a young minister in charge of cooperation in the parallel youth government, believes that the Moroccan youth crisis is not with politics, but with politicians.

In an interview with Al Jazeera Net, Boutibi mentioned that the parallel youth government warned that party leaders and frameworks do not communicate with young people except to beg for their votes in electoral campaigns and to resort to repeated promises in dealing with voters, and adds that failure to fulfill promises reinforces the reluctance of young people to participate in the electoral process. .

He believes that the question of trust is still strongly present among young people who choose to withdraw from political action, thus embodying a state of aversion towards existing organizations. Rather, he sees himself as influential outside the traditional mechanisms of participation, represented by what he called "rigid elites and electoral bureaucracy."

According to the Minister of the Parallel Youth Government, young people refuse to participate in institutions, and most of their slogans are chanted in sports stadiums and on social media platforms.