Fatima Ezzahra El Mansouri becomes Morocco’s first woman prime minister after PAM tops polls

Rabat: King Mohammed VI of Morocco has appointed Fatima Ezzahra El Mansouri, national coordinator of the Authenticity and Modernity Party (PAM), as the country’s new prime minister, making her the first woman to head the government in the North African kingdom.

The royal palace announced the appointment on Wednesday, a day after the Interior Ministry released preliminary results of the September 23 parliamentary elections showing PAM as the largest party in the House of Representatives. Under Morocco’s constitution, the king appoints the prime minister from the party that wins the most seats, and that leader then forms a government.

PAM secured 97 of the 395 seats in the lower house, ahead of the National Rally of Independents with 66 seats and the Istiqlal Party with 65 seats, Interior Minister Abdelouafi Laftit said. The Justice and Development Party (PJD), which had led coalition governments after the 2011 and 2016 elections, came fourth with 54 seats.

Of the 395 seats, 305 are elected through local constituencies, while 90 are reserved for women on regional lists. The Interior Ministry said 7,288 candidates from 28 political groups contested the election, with women accounting for 2,658 candidates, or 36.47 per cent of the total.

Morocco has a bicameral parliament made up of the House of Representatives and the House of Councillors. The 2026 polls determined the composition of the House of Representatives across the country’s 12 regions; elections for the upper house are due in 2027.

The outgoing government was formed by a coalition of PAM, the National Rally of Independents and the Istiqlal Party. They faced competition from the PJD, the Socialist Union of Popular Forces, the Popular Movement and the Party of Progress and Socialism, among others.

(Inputs from IANS)