Morocco | Small revolution or clever move?

The Moroccan King Mohammad VI. (r.) appoints Fatima Ezzahra Al.Mansouri as head of government during a meeting in Rabat. Photo: dpa/Mosa’ab Elshamy Mohammad VI’s decision. was already expected for Monday. According to the constitution, the king selects a head of government from among the party that received the most seats in the parliamentary elections. Before the elections, almost all observers were sure that this would be Fouzi Lekjaa in the ranks of the economically liberal PAM. The popular head of the national football association is supposed to prepare the country for the World Cup in 2030. With 97 seats, the “Party for Authenticity and Modernity” actually won the election.

But after a few days of deliberation, the King appointed Fatima Ezzahra Al-Mansouri as Morocco's first female head of government. After the Tunisian Najla Bouden Romdhane, she is the second woman to hold this position in the Arab world.

In liberal Tunis, Romdhane's appointment in 2021 was received calmly given the many women in leading positions in public life. Al-Mansouri has also already demonstrated competence and leadership as mayor of Marrakesh and minister of planning and urban development. But her entry into the most important state office after the king and his personally selected advisory staff challenges the still very patriarchal values ​​of Moroccan society.

After all, the sensation has pushed one issue completely to the sidelines: the lowest voter turnout in 20 years at 38 percent. For those under 24, it was only four percent. Now the reactions to the new head of government fluctuate between shock and euphoria.

The 50-year-old lawyer Al-Mansouri is used to effusive praise from liberal circles and screaming criticism from religious-conservative circles. In the tourist metropolis of Marrakesh, she was the first woman to head the local council of Mohammad VI. The modernization course he announced when he took office in 1999 was rigorously implemented. Poor districts, so-called bidonvilles, were declared dilapidated and the residents were compensated and relocated.

»This historic moment for all Moroccan women fills me with great pride.«

Shopping arcades and apartments were then built according to the wishes of international buyers and rich Moroccans. This turbo-charged modernization has turned Marrakesh into a well-oiled tourism machine, attracting well-heeled visitors from the Gulf States as well as backpackers seeking a taste of the Orient. Al-Mansouri was already known for effective work during her studies, report former fellow students.

She had already specialized in planning and real estate law at the University of Rabat. Her decision to join the PAM, the party for “authenticity and modernity,” during its founding phase was also only logical. The economically liberal PAM was launched in 2008 by Fouad Al-Himma, a close advisor to the king, as a bulwark against the Islamists who were becoming increasingly popular at the time.

They had cleverly taken up the cause of the increasing isolation of large parts of the population from the economic and construction boom. Al-Mansouri, who is eloquent and easy-going, is already a counter-model to the Islamists, who often still set the tone in society in the left-behind province.

»I am a devout Muslim, but strictly against the ideology of the Muslim Brotherhood. “I will not accept Islamists in Morocco,” she said in a recent interview. A declaration of war on the conservatives of the PJD, who will co-govern until 2021 and who lost 90 percent of their seats after the normalization agreement with Israel, but will now once again be one of the strongest opposition forces in parliament.

Al-Mansouri learned English in New York, where, like in Montpellier, she earned a diploma. International investors, World Bank conferences and large corporations attracted them to Marrakech. A success story entirely in keeping with the tastes of the “Makhzen”, the circle around Mohammad VI that rarely appears in public. The very important decisions are made there and passed on to the government for implementation.

Fatima Ezzahra Al-Mansouri at a campaign event for the Party for “Authenticity and Modernity” (PAM) before the parliamentary elections. Photo: AFP/Driss Ben Malek After serving as a member of parliament in Rabat, the mother of two returned to Marrakech for a second time as mayor. Even more new development areas emerged.

She has been separated from the father of her children, the businessman Choukri Berrada, since their divorce. Modern Moroccan women are celebrating her appointment as head of government.

“This historic moment for all Moroccan women fills me with great pride,” says Fatima Ezzahra Al-Mansouri, visibly moved, into the cameras after the meeting with the king. Many hope that with Al-Mansouri, conservative Moroccan society will now become more open to female leaders. A reform of family law from 2004 also fell during her term of office. But another task is more urgent: it must offer the frustrated youth of Gen Z and the unemployed who have been left behind by modernization a perspective before they take to the streets again.

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