He did not have one of the election’s bigger party machines behind him. What Oussama Barik did have was a name built over years of talking online about broken roads, isolated mountain communities and the everyday grievances of Midelt.
On Wednesday, that was enough to take him to Parliament.
Oussama Barik, a young content creator better known by that name than his given name, Abdelaziz, topped the poll in his constituency with more than 32,000 votes, beating candidates from the Popular Movement and PAM on his way to the House of Representatives.
The ticket he rode was an unlikely one. Barik stood for the Unity and Democracy Party (PUD), a small formation whose faucet symbol was considerably less familiar on the national political scene than the emblems of the parties he was up against.
When the countrywide numbers were added up, PUD had won one of Parliament’s 395 seats. Midelt had delivered it.
Barik’s win was years in the making, though not through the usual party route. His constituency had largely been online.
Through videos shared on social media, he built an audience around problems that seldom need much explaining in Midelt’s mountain country; villages cut off or poorly connected, weak infrastructure and the struggle to reach basic services. Imilchil and other mountain areas regularly featured in his videos.
It was local politics without much of the party wrapping, and Barik carried that name recognition into an election where he was facing candidates backed by far bigger organizations.
The Popular Movement, long a player in rural and mountain constituencies, finished the national election with 29 seats. PAM topped the provisional national standings with 97.
Neither label was enough to get past Barik in Midelt.
The result also produced one of the election’s more unusual journeys to Parliament. Barik had not made his name climbing through a party hierarchy or holding national office. He arrived on voters’ phones, talking about the roads, services and isolation of communities around them.
