Fatima Ezzahra El Mansouri will begin talks on forming Morocco’s next government on Wednesday, with PAM saying it intends to approach parties from both the outgoing majority and opposition — including a PJD that has already declared it wants no part in the next government.
The mandate came from PAM’s political bureau hours after King Mohammed VI appointed El Mansouri as Morocco’s first woman Head of Government and tasked her with forming a cabinet.
“The political bureau has tasked me with starting talks with the political parties tomorrow,” El Mansouri told Le360 after the party leadership met in Rabat on Tuesday evening.
“I’ll have the opportunity to keep you informed about how these rounds of consultations are progressing,” she added.
Mehdi Bensaïd, who sits alongside El Mansouri in PAM’s collective leadership, said the party would work its way through the parliamentary field according to the parties’ showing in the Sept 23 election.
The order, he said, would follow “the parties’ ranking and the number of seats they won.”
“We’re going to talk to everyone,” Bensaïd said.
That would put the PJD on El Mansouri’s consultation list despite Abdelilah Benkirane’s party having already put itself firmly on the other side of the aisle.
The PJD National Council voted unanimously in Bouznika on Saturday to remain in opposition, endorsing an earlier decision by its General Secretariat. Benkirane had gone further immediately after the election, ruling out participation in a government led by PAM.
PAM, for its part, has kept the door open.
El Mansouri declined to set red lines when asked about possible alliances the day after the election, arguing that coalition talk should wait until the King had appointed the Head of Government. Bensaïd’s remarks on Tuesday suggest the party will now test that position across the parliamentary board before deciding where a workable majority lies.
The talks are expected to run into next week.
PAM goes into them with 97 seats, the largest bloc in the 395-member House but 101 short of the 198 needed for an absolute majority.
Immediately behind it are two parties that governed alongside PAM during the outgoing term: the RNI with 66 seats and Istiqlal with 65.
Istiqlal has yet to decide whether it wants another term in government. Its leadership has referred the question to the party’s National Council, due to meet on Saturday.
The PJD’s 54 seats come next, followed by the Popular Movement with 29 and the USFP with 26.
The numbers give El Mansouri several possible routes to 198, but Tuesday’s decision to speak to parties in order of their electoral weight means PAM will first hear where each intends to stand before narrowing the field.
The political bureau meeting came only hours after the new Head of Government left the Royal Palace, where King Mohammed VI appointed her under Article 47 of the Constitution following PAM’s first-place finish in the Sept 23 polls.
El Mansouri said after her appointment that she wanted consultations completed quickly enough to submit a proposed government to the King “as soon as possible.”
She also promised a program offering what she called “real, realistic solutions” to citizens’ concerns, singling out the expectations of young people as one of the pressures facing the next executive.
