Less than a fortnight after PAM and RNI traded some of the sharpest blows of the election campaign, their leaders were back across the same table on Wednesday, this time to see whether five years together in government could stretch into another term.
Fatima Ezzahra El Mansouri received an RNI delegation at PAM headquarters in Rabat in the first round of consultations on forming Morocco’s next government, a day after King Mohammed VI appointed her Head of Government following PAM’s victory in the Sept 23 polls.
The meeting followed the order set by PAM after the election. Having finished first with 97 seats, the party decided to receive its rivals according to their ranking at the ballot box. RNI, with 66, was first through the door; Istiqlal, just one seat behind on 65, was due to follow.
Mohamed Chouki headed the RNI delegation, accompanied by Rachid Talbi Alami and Mohamed Boussaid. El Mansouri sat on the PAM side with Abdellatif Ouahbi, Fouzi Lekjaa and Ahmed Akhchichine.
The seating arrangement would have been difficult to picture at several points during the campaign.
PAM and RNI spent five years together in the outgoing three-party majority with Istiqlal, but the approach of the Sept 23 vote steadily stripped the alliance of its courtesies. Disputes over politicians crossing from one party to the other gave way to accusations over political ethics and challenges to rival candidacies, while senior figures on both sides took their differences onto campaign platforms.
El Mansouri herself had said before polling day that, in her personal view, she would not serve in another government headed by RNI if the party won the election.
Fouzi Lekjaa, who joined PAM ahead of the election and was sitting alongside El Mansouri at Wednesday’s meeting, had been considerably less restrained on the stump. At an Azilal rally, he took aim at the outgoing government’s spending record while responding to RNI criticism of PAM’s program.
RNI and PAM had clashed earlier over defections to the Tractor Party, including politicians who had left RNI. An RNI statement accused PAM of poaching elected officials and questioned the ethics of the practice; PAM hit back by accusing its coalition partner of “counter-truths” and pointed to politicians who had moved in the opposite direction before the 2021 election.
RNI did not retain first place, removing the scenario El Mansouri had rejected during the campaign. PAM instead emerged with the largest parliamentary bloc, leaving RNI to enter Wednesday’s talks as the second-placed party and El Mansouri as the woman charged with assembling a majority.
The changed order does not make another PAM-RNI partnership inevitable, but the parliamentary arithmetic has brought the two sides back to each other quickly.
PAM’s 97 seats leave it 101 short of the 198 required for an absolute majority in the 395-member House. A deal with RNI would bring the tally to 163, still 35 short. Bringing Istiqlal and its 65 seats back into the fold would restore the outgoing three-party combination with a comfortable 228 seats.
Istiqlal has yet to commit itself. Its leadership has called a National Council meeting for Saturday to decide whether the party will join the next majority.
El Mansouri is not confining her conversations to parties likely to enter government either. PAM said after its political bureau meeting on Tuesday that it would extend a hand across the parliamentary divide, and Mehdi Bensaïd said the consultations would proceed according to the parties’ electoral ranking.
That has left room for an encounter with Abdelilah Benkirane even after the PJD unanimously chose opposition.
El Mansouri telephoned the PJD secretary-general on Tuesday evening and proposed a meeting. Benkirane welcomed the approach and left the date to her, although his party’s 54 MPs are, for now, firmly headed for the opposition benches.
