PJD, leading political force in the Moroccan regional elections

Fourteen and a half million Moroccan citizens were called to express their vote last 4th of September in the 2015 local and regional elections, which will renew the Moroccan regional and municipal councils.  The President to date of the Rabat-Salé-Zemmour-Zaer Regional Council, Abdelkebir Berkia, is ORU’s Vice-President, and the organisation counts amongst its members other Moroccan Regional Councils, such as Fès-Meknès, Laâyoune-Sakia El Hamra and Tanger-Tétouan-Al Hoceïma. This is why ORU has paid special attention to the development of this democratic day. 

 The results of the ballot gave a victory to the moderate islamists of the Justice and Development Party (PJD), which currently holds the Governments Presidency, in the country’s main regions. This is the case of Casablanca-Settat, Rabat-Salé-Kénitra, Souss-Massa and Fès-Meknès. The Authenticity and Modernity Party (PAM) has won in the regions of Marrakech-Safi, Tangier-Tetouan-Al Hoceïma, Béni Mellal-Khénifra, and L'oriental, while the Istiqlal Party(PI) has won Laâyoune-Sakia El Hamra and Dakhla-Oued Ed Dahab. Once the counting of the votes completed, the PJD has obtained 174 seats, the PAM, 132, and the PI, 119 in the Regional Chambers. In the local elections, however, the PJD came third behind the PAM end the PI, but won in an overwhelming majority in the main metropoles: Rabat, Tangiers, Agadir, Casablanca, Marrakech, Fez, Tetouan, Chauen and Kenitra.

 “Morocco and democracy have won these elections”, says Abdelkebir Berkia, “and they have revealed that those working close to and in favour of the citizens obtain good results”. ORU’s Vice-President added that these elections greatly strengthen regions as a political structure and that they will allow deploying all regional prerogatives of the 2011 Constitution. Voter turnout in these regional and local elections, held every 6 years, was approximately 53 %, a little more than in 2009 and in the 2011 legislative elections. According to international observers, the election took place without major incidents and included, as the most significant novelty, higher female participation than in other occasions.