Elections in Morocco: "There were warning signs of a decline of the PJD"
Press conference of PJD executives in Rabat, on September 9, after their defeat in the Moroccan elections.
AFP - FADEL SENNA
Text by: Amélie Tulet Follow
4 min
After a decade at the head of the government, the Moroccan Islamists of the Justice and Development Party (PJD) suffered a real slap on Wednesday, September 8 in the legislative elections.
These elections were organized at the same time as the municipal and regional ones.
Interview with David Goeury, geographer at the Mediations laboratory of Sorbonne University and researcher associated with the organization Tafra (la mutation), a center created in 2014 in Rabat with the mission of improving citizens' understanding of the functioning of public institutions .
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Interview by our special correspondent in Rabat,
RFI: Did you expect this defeat of the Islamists of the PJD?
David Goeury:
There were warning signs of this decline.
It was very clear that the PJD was in a difficult situation, because it had already suffered a defeat in the union elections in June, with a strong ebb during the elections which concerned public officials and particularly in their bastion of National Education.
The PJD was therefore losing its audience within its militant base.
Then, the second disappointment for the PJD: its regression in the professional elections in August.
PJD candidates had the lowest conversion rate between the number of candidates and the number of elected officials in the chambers of crafts, commerce, industry and services.
So the PJD was also losing its urban electorate.
And when there were the announcements of candidates for the municipal elections in September, the PJD had lost 47% of its candidates.
While he had succeeded in mobilizing more than 16,000 candidates in the 2015 municipal elections, there he had lost more than 7,600. Therefore, PJD elected officials and activists did not stand for the municipal elections to defend the colors. party.
The cumulative effect of a decline in the audience among its urban electorate and a decline in the number of candidates sufficient to run in small towns and rural communities heralded a defeat for the PJD.
But did the magnitude of the sanction vote surprise everyone
?
Yes, the PJD loses more than 80% of its voters compared to the legislative elections of 2016. Like Saad-Eddine el-Othmani (the outgoing Prime Minister, Editor's note) who failed to be elected in the constituency of Rabat-Océan when the PJD came out on top in 2016.
The PJD controlled all major Moroccan cities.
He had an absolute majority in city councils.
It seems that voters have sanctioned a record deemed modest at the head of these large cities.
And we even see that the PJD militant cores did not mobilize to defend the party's record.
There was also an extremely strong internal criticism about the record of these commune presidents who held a seat in Parliament, who were ousted by the PJD itself and who did not stand for re-election.
What are the ingredients for the victory of the RNI, the party of Aziz Akhannouch which won the most seats in the House of Representatives
?
We could see very clearly that the RNI had been leading a very intense campaign since January and that it had succeeded in mobilizing very strongly during the professional elections where it came largely in the lead.
In addition to this, the RNI has succeeded in mobilizing more than 25,000 candidates in the municipal elections by covering 80% of the constituencies, which is exceptional in Morocco.
And he also had a very good score in the big cities.
This is explained by a very intense campaign on social networks, in particular by the financing of the promotion of content.
For the RNI page alone (on Facebook, Editor's note), there is an expenditure of $ 300,000 to promote content.
This strategy has paid off, because in the big Moroccan cities, the participation rate remains particularly low.
Hence the importance of mobilizing new voters.
And the RNI has targeted younger voters, women, in its campaign.
He defended his program and his record in the government, in particular the good management of the Covid-19 crisis by his ministers.
As a reminder, the CVE, the Economic Watch Council, was headed by Mr. Benchaboun and Mou el-Alami was in Industry, ministries very mobilized during the crisis.
The RNI, by promoting its program to this urban electorate, succeeded in mobilizing it in a context of very high abstention.
In cities, usually at elections, out of the population of voting age, only one in five voters move.
As a result, the RNI has combined two effects: a very strong campaign in rural municipalities and medium-sized towns, therefore a field campaign, and a campaign on social networks to mobilize the urban electorate.
► Read also: In Morocco, the reasons for the success of the RNI, the "dove party"
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