With a sullen and worried face, Abdelilah Benkirane, the former head of the Moroccan government and former Secretary-General of the Justice and Development Party, went live on his Facebook page, calling on Moroccans to beware of the wrong choice during the September 8 elections. Benkirane was not only angry, but also pessimistic, and therefore preferred to focus on criticizing his political opponent, "Aziz Akhannouch", the Secretary-General of the National Rally of Independents, who was recently appointed by the king as prime minister. Political positions that affected the popularity of the party. (1)
However, despite his apparent concern ahead of the elections, Benkirane, neither he nor Akhannouch himself, would have imagined that PJD would fail, not only in reaching the third term, but also in maintaining a position among the seven most present parties.
Justice and Development ranked eighth in the party rankings after winning only 13 seats, in a surprise of high caliber, after five years ago, it won 125 seats that allowed it to form a government for the second time in a row.
The Big Crash
On the evening of October 7, 2016, the weddings and nights of the Mellah were a dear guest at the headquarters of the Moroccan Justice and Development Party in the Lemon neighborhood in the capital, Rabat. At that time, he obstructed the elections, and helped his rival, the Authenticity and Modernity Party, by inviting voters outside the polling places to choose the "Al Jarrar" party. After that, "Mohamed Hassad", the former Moroccan Minister of Interior, came out to announce the victory of Justice and Development in the elections, rejecting at the same time the accusations of Benkirane. (2) (3)
That press conference was the "last happy moment" that Morocco's Islamists experienced in the past five years. It was immediately followed by the many difficulties that the party experienced during the formation of the Moroccan government.
Because of what was known in the media as "Blukage"*, which overthrew Benkirane and brought Othmani at the head of the party.
Despite all this, the leadership of the General Secretariat for Justice and Development did not imagine that after 5 years from this date, the party would obtain only 13 parliamentary seats in the next elections.
(4)
This shocking collapse was preceded by many indicators, starting with the party entering the electoral campaign stage without the leadership of Abdelilah Benkirane, who is able to address the masses and lead mass campaigns efficiently, whose role in winning the previous legislative elections in 2016 was clearly noticeable, as it managed to outperform all the trustees. With his usual popularity, he was able to market the proceeds of his government.
Abdelilah Benkirane
In addition, the damage to the popularity of Justice and Development was evident during the electoral campaigns, as a number of prominent party leaders, led by Saad Eddin El Othmani, head of government, and Idris El-Azmi, head of the party’s parliament, were subjected to attacks that sometimes amounted to beatings, insults and slander by a number of parties. outraged protesters. The party has repeatedly expressed its outrage at these actions and considered them as intimidating tactics financed by competitors by hiring some "thugs". (5)
These matters were only indications of a violent crisis affecting the party's image and political position. As for the causes of the downfall themselves, they are divided into internal causes and reasons related to the party's role in major files in Morocco during the past few years. Internally, the palace’s dismissal of Abdelilah Benkirane in 2016 caused a major split within the party, and the appointment of El Othmani as prime minister required the reunification of the two fronts and the removal of Benkirane from heading the General Secretariat of the “Al-Masbah” also (the Justice and Development Party is also known as the Misbah Party), and the party was unable to He rejected the king's decision, and he would not have dared to take a step back for fear of losing the political gains he had achieved after the elections.
The internal division between Benkirane's supporters and those wishing to turn its page affected the party's ability to face the major challenges that awaited it, which were represented in three essential files in which the party took positions that contradict its principles and the ideas of its popular incubator. At first, the Islamists lost a huge asset after allowing the passage of the “French Education” law, which allowed the teaching of scientific subjects in French instead of Arabic, despite the parliamentary party’s ability to prevent it. And, last but not least, defending the normalization of relations between Morocco and Israel was a severe blow to the popularity of a party that has long publicized its Islamic tendencies. (6) (7)
However, this great change in the political color of the party was not the exclusive reason for its electoral downfall. There are other reasons that contributed to this sudden exit from the back door after a decade of controlling the government, the most important of which is the withdrawal of the Justice and Development from its basic project that it announced in 2011 and pledged to fight corruption and tyranny. . Amina Ma Al-Aynain, one of the party's most outraged female faces, said in a post on her personal account on the social networking site "Facebook" that the voters felt the party had abandoned the real battles and its political role, as it was dominated by hesitation, silence and negative withdrawal. (8)
In the same context, the New York Times said in a report on the Moroccan elections that voters felt that the Justice and Development Party no longer had a say in major policies, and the newspaper indicated that the period of the health crisis due to the spread of the “Covid-19” virus assured everyone that The Islamists do not have any space for decision, as all decisions related to the economic and health affairs were taken by the state, while Al-Othmani and his party, like the rest of the people, sat waiting for decisions to be implemented, as the people sometimes demanded the prime minister to participate in decision-making at the very least. (9)
This great confusion caused the AKP to lose a large percentage of the voters who trusted it, and these are divided into three segments. The first segment is the conservative Islamists who supported the Benkirane and Othmani party in the 2016 elections out of their ideological biases, and aligned with the party in its ideological battle against the Authenticity and Modernity Party. This group did not like the change in the positions of justice and development in the normalization agreement in the first place, although it was also upset by his new position regarding French and the drug of quality.
The second segment is the middle class, which saw in the Justice and Development Party a “clean” and “pure” political current, unlike the rest of the parties, and that segment hoped to achieve change that would benefit from the Arab Spring wave that began in 2011. As for the third segment, they are the fragile groups that elected the party Previously because of his promises to improve people's lives, but she was quickly exhausted by economic crises, especially during the pandemic, and while she did not perceive any real desire by the government to help her, she saw in return the great support provided by the ruling party to major companies during the "boycott movement" that it took An important segment of the Moroccan people protesting the high prices and poor quality.
internal explosion
After the election results were announced, a number of anti-Ottoman Islamic Party leaders came out to publicly express their anger and disappointment at the "humiliating" result they had achieved. The most important protester was the former Secretary-General and former Prime Minister Abdelilah Benkirane. He quickly resigned, blaming the current leadership for the party's poor results. (10)
In the same vein, the leader, Amna Maa Al-Aynain, came out calling for Al-Othmani to resign, considering that the current leadership is smaller than the party and without its aspirations. She said in a blog post that the Prime Minister allowed the passage of disastrous electoral laws, made many unconsidered concessions, and refused to activate constitutional requirements that could save The party, accusing it of adopting an iron exclusionary logic within the party. (11) The "Islamic" leader added in another post that the time of political Islam is over, calling for a re-reading and review of the party's thought because the current generation has ambitions that differ from the founding generation of the Islamic movement.
As for the second party, members and supporters of the current leadership of the party, their reaction varied, starting with “Aziz Rabah,” the Minister of Energy, who went out on his Facebook page to apologize after years of ministry, expressing his surprise and shock at the number of seats his party won. Commenting on this, he said: "I find no explanation for these disastrous results. If we only counted the members, sympathizers, their families, relatives, friends, neighbors, some employees who have tried us, and some who are satisfied with our work, effort and integrity, if we count this only, we would be in the first ranks with distinction." (12) Other party leaders have questioned the results and considered that money played its game in guiding voters, the same proposal adopted by the General Secretariat for Justice and Development, which then announced its collective resignation and called the party’s parliament to convene on September 18 to discuss the party’s new roadmap. Who will return to the opposition for the first time in ten years. (13)
The new government.. what's new?
Aziz Akhannouch, the new Prime Minister of Morocco, in his meeting with King Mohammed VI
Away from the disastrous results achieved by the Islamists, it was evident that some parties benefited from this stumble to restore the spirit to their political life, and the most important of these parties, of course, is the National Rally of Independents party led by the billionaire “Aziz Akhannouch”, the expected prime minister, who won 102 seats after he was eliminated from the elections 2016 with only 37 seats. The Authenticity and Modernity Party, which lost the 2016 elections in favor of the Islamists, managed to maintain its second position despite the great problems it experienced after the collapse of its previous project, obtaining 86 seats. In third place came the Istiqlal Party, one of the well-established parties, whose Secretary-General "Nizar Al-Baraka" considered the party's 81 seats as evidence of the return of "Al-Mizan" to its former strength after its luster faded in the previous period.Then came the rest of the parties such as the Socialist Union, the Popular Movement, Progress, Socialism and the Constitutional Union, all of which maintained almost the same number of seats that they had obtained in the previous elections.
It is clear from these figures that the National Rally of Independents, led by Akhannouch, will not find much difficulty in forming a government, thanks to the fall of the Justice and Development Party.
Akhannouch needs 198 seats to obtain a majority, and then he can enter into an alliance with the Istiqlal Party and any other party to secure a majority, and he can also strengthen this majority with the help of a fourth party.
As for the Authenticity and Modernity Party, which came second, the previous statements of its Secretary-General, "Abdel-Latif Wahbi", in which he said that his alliance with the Ahrar is difficult because he wants to work "with Akhannouch" and not "with Akhannouch", make him the first candidate to lead the Moroccan opposition, especially since he made an alliance With the Justice and Development Party before the elections, with the aim of overthrowing the billionaire's party in the event that he or his Islamic ally leads the elections.
Aziz Akhannouch, head of the Liberal Party, makes a statement to the press, to his left is the head of the Constitutional Union Party, Muhammad Sajid, and to his right is the Ottoman (activists)
Then the question remains: Do these changes in the composition of the government mean a change in the political system? The New York Times says in this regard that the Liberals' victory in the elections will not change much, because the political decision in Morocco is not based on the parliament as much as it is based on the public policies governed by the royal palace. The same was confirmed by Abdel Razzaq Al-Bayaz, Professor of Political Science and Constitutional Law at the Faculty of Legal, Economic and Social Sciences in El Jadida, in a statement to the “SNRT News” website affiliated with the Moroccan official public media, where he said that the political parties’ programs bear very large slogans, but they will focus On the adoption of the development model set by the commission appointed by King Mohammed VI to promote the Moroccan economy. (14)
In the end, the next government led by Akhannouch will be the first government experience devoid of Islamists since the reforms of 2011, as Islamists ruled for a decade in Morocco, executively and legislatively, under the sovereignty of the king in the end, but now the country is closing the last pages of the spring Islamists in the Arab world, Those who were overthrown by coarse military coups at times, and soft constitutionalism at times.
While Morocco is witnessing their smooth exit from power with open elections, the bitterness of the loss among the Islamists is at least attributed to the fact that they are still present on the scene, and that the doors remain open for them to return according to the same rules that brought them to power, and that the quiet Moroccan reformist experiment continues without harsh or harsh interventions Soft against any political party, so far.
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margins
* “Blockage”: A term given to the period of political stalemate that followed the 2016 elections, after the prime minister-designate, affiliated with the Justice and Development Party, Abdelilah Benkirane, failed for several months to agree with the parties to form a government, which prompted the king to assign the assignment to Saad Eddine El Othmani.
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Sources
Professor Abdelilah Ibn Kiran's speech regarding the elections of September 08, 2021
Benkirane attacks the governors of the interior and warns them against rigging the elections
Video.
Harvest deals a severe blow to justice and development
Reading in the government "blockage"
The Moroccan "Justice and Development" complains of attacks on its members during the electoral campaign in Rabat and Kenitra
ramid how to ration
Al-Othmani to Al-Jazeera: Normalization is a difficult decision, and Morocco will not give up its support for the Palestinian cause
Shocking, harsh and unexpected results even from the most pessimistic… It is a description, not a position.
Islamists See Big Losses in Moroccan Parliamentary Elections
Morocco.. Benkirane calls on Othmani to resign after a "painful defeat" for their party
Maa Al-Ainin calls on Othmani to resign
Shocking, harsh and unexpected results even from the most pessimistic… It is a description, not a position.
What about the future of the Justice and Development Party?
The General Secretariat of Justice and Development of Morocco announces a mass resignation