Morocco elections

Morocco held parliamentary elections on 7th September. Many people expected the Islamist Justice and Development Party (PJD) to win. The PJD is a moderate Muslim party which did well in the last elections in 2002.

There are 24 different political parties in Morocco. So it is difficult for one party to win enough seats to be able to out-vote all the others. The parliament has 325 members. The PJD party was hoping to win between 70 and 80 seats.

Although the PJD is a religious party, its leaders insist it does not want Morocco to become an Islamic state. Some of its members recently visited the USA to meet government officials. The USA gives Morocco a lot of money and PJD members wanted to let America know that they are committed to democracy.

In the election the PJD won only 46 seats, Istiqlal – or the Independence Party – came first with 52 seats. This was unexpected. Istiqlal had done badly in the elections held five years ago. Another surprise was that the Union of Socialist Popular Forces (USFP), which won the last elections, came fifth with 36 seats.

Some PJD members were unhappy with the result. They accused Istiqlal of paying people to vote for it. But observers from the European Union (EU) were there to check that the election was fair. They were satisfied with the result. They say the election was a success and were pleased that an effort had been made to get more women to vote.

Istiqlal and the USFP will probably now work together to form a new government. This means they can exclude the PJD from government jobs.

Although Morocco holds democratic elections, its ruling king is still very powerful. Usually, parliament has to get his permission before it can make new rules or change laws. The king – Mohammed the Sixth – will now choose a member of Istiqlal or the USFP to become prime minister.

The number of people who voted in the election was disappointing. In the last election in 2002 nearly 52% of people voted. This time only 37% did. In Morocco over half the 15 million people able to vote are illiterate. Each political party chose a symbol so that people unable to read or write could recognise it on the voting form.