The battle between the RNI and PAM is no longer just about candidates and defections. Weeks before the September 23 elections, the two parties are already looking towards the next government—and the Economy and Finance Ministry has emerged as one of the first points of friction.
The issue burst into the open with the leaked recording attributed to Rachid Talbi Alami. In it, the House of Representatives Speaker says that if the RNI retains the head of government, Fouzi Lekjaa will not get Finance and Nadia Fettah will stay on.
The remark amounts to an unusually early marker over a ministry the RNI has largely kept within its fold for nearly two decades.
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Since 2007, Finance has been headed almost continuously by RNI figures or personalities close to the party. The only break came between 2012 and 2013, when Istiqlal’s Nizar Baraka held the portfolio.
Salaheddine Mezouar took charge in 2007 and remained until 2012. Mohamed Boussaid returned the ministry to the RNI fold in 2013 and stayed until 2018, followed by Mohamed Benchaâboun until 2021.
Nadia Fettah has held the portfolio since October 2021. She is also a member of the RNI Political Bureau.
That long run helps explain why Talbi Alami’s remarks have struck a nerve at a time when relations between the RNI and PAM are rapidly deteriorating.
Finance is also no ordinary portfolio. It sits at the heart of the state budget, taxation, public debt and investment, while handling the government’s financial dealings at home and abroad.
And the man Talbi Alami appears determined to keep away from it is already inside the ministry.
Lekjaa already has one hand on the budget
Fouzi Lekjaa has served as Minister Delegate in charge of the Budget since the Akhannouch government took office in October 2021.
Long before entering government, Finance was already his professional home.
An inspector of finances, Lekjaa spent much of his career at the Budget Directorate and became its director in 2011. When he joined the government a decade later, he stayed in familiar territory—even keeping the office he had occupied as Budget Director.
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Over the past five years, a clear division of labor has taken shape at Finance.
Fettah has been more visible on the ministry’s economic and financial files, including dealings with the IMF and World Bank and fundraising on international markets.
Lekjaa, meanwhile, has become the government’s leading face on the budget, handling arbitrations and defending the Finance Bill before Parliament. His role also extends to several of the ministry’s strategic administrations, including taxation, the Treasury and Customs.
The arrangement has even given rise to a line heard increasingly in political circles: Fettah is the minister on paper, while Lekjaa is the “real” Finance Minister.
Institutionally, that is not the case—Fettah remains the sole holder of the portfolio. But the perception says much about the weight Lekjaa has accumulated inside the ministry.
Then Lekjaa joined PAM
Until July, talk of Lekjaa eventually taking the full Finance portfolio could be viewed as a possible next step for a senior official who had spent his career working on the state’s finances.
His entry into the PAM changed that calculation.
Lekjaa is now not only a minister and former senior civil servant. He is a PAM politician heading into his first legislative election at a time when his new party is locked in an increasingly bitter confrontation with the RNI.
Putting him in charge of Finance after September 23 would therefore mean something very different: a ministry associated with the RNI for most of the past 19 years would pass into PAM hands.
Seen against that backdrop, Talbi Alami’s leaked remarks are particularly pointed. By declaring before the election that Lekjaa will not “see” the ministry if the RNI retains the head of government, he appears to be drawing a line around Finance before any coalition talks have even begun.
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The leak also comes as the dispute between the two parties widens.
The RNI has accused the PAM of trying to lure away its MPs, elected officials and prospective candidates. PAM has rejected the accusations and hit back by pointing to the RNI’s own recruitment of politicians from rival parties ahead of the 2021 elections.
Lekjaa’s move to PAM has only raised the stakes.
Finance — or something bigger?
There is another question hanging over the increasingly public fight: whether Finance is actually the limit of Lekjaa’s political ambitions.
His profile is unusual. He combines a long career in the senior civil service with five years in government, detailed knowledge of public finances and an international profile built through football. Since July, he has added something he previously lacked: a party base.
That has fueled speculation in political circles that his trajectory could eventually take him beyond Finance, with some observers even raising the prospect of a future bid for the head of government.
For PAM, his arrival comes as the party seeks to increase its weight in the next majority and strengthen its hand after September 23.
For RNI, the immediate question is more concrete. It has held Finance, with one brief interruption, since 2007. Talbi Alami’s leaked remarks suggest it has little intention of giving it up.
