OnIslam & News Agencies
The PJD predicts it will win 70-80 seats in the 395-member parliament, making it the biggest contingent in Morocco. (Google)
RABAT – Encouraged by a changing political landscape in the Middle East since the Arab Spring uprisings, Morocco’s moderate Islamists eye a resurgence in this month’s elections.
“The Tunisian experience has set the trend,” Lahcen Daodi, the deputy leader of the Islamist Justice and Development Party (PJD), told Reuters.
“There is not much of a difference between Moroccans and Tunisians. Also, the West is becoming more familiarized with us.”
Moroccans will go to polling stations on November 25, to elect a new parliament.
Daodi forecast that his party will win 70-80 seats in the 395-member parliament, making it the biggest contingent and improving on its second place in the 2007 parliamentary election.
Under constitutional reforms backed by King Mohamed VI earlier this year, if the PJD emerges as the biggest group in parliament it will nominate the prime minister, though it will govern in a coalition with other parties.
It says it will create a government alliance with three secularist groups, including Istiqlal, the party of the prime minister, Abbas Al Fassi.
The Middle East has been rocked by a series of popular uprisings this year that swept three Arab leaders from power.
The revolts have also brought previously-banned Islamists to the helm of power in some countries as Tunisia, where Islamist Ennahda party won last month’s election.
The Muslim Brotherhood is also expected to emerge the biggest winner in the November 28 elections in Egypt, which also saw an uprising that ousted president Hosni Mubarak in February.
No Scaremongering
But Daodi believes that opponents will use fraud to try to keep his party out of power.
“Money is still floating freely,” he told Reuters.
“Some evil forces are trying to keep Moroccans in the gutter. But we also understand that authorities can’t be everywhere.”
Parliamentary elections in Morocco have often been marred by vote-buying although officials maintain they are democratic and transparent.
“The higher (the voter turnout) the better it is for us because it will complicate vote-buying,” Daodi said.
A leaked US diplomatic cable said the PJD has the largest popular support base in Morocco.
Yet since its formation in 1998, the Islamic-leaning party has been unable to convert that into power.
Like Ennahda, the PJD is influenced by Turkey’s moderate ruling AK Party.
The party does not propose imposing a strict Islamic moral code on society, but says it will encourage Islamic finance.
The PJD stresses its support for the monarchy, in contrast to Justice and Charity, an Islamist opposition group which is banned and took part in demonstrations this year to demand radical democratic reform.
The PJD appeals to Morocco’s vast numbers of poor voters by focusing on economic and social issues.
Its lawmakers are also known for being the most active in a parliament that has traditionally been plagued by high rates of absenteeism.
The party’s underlying popularity, and the shift in perception towards Islamists in the wake of the Arab Spring, mean this election could be different from previous votes.
“Islamists are much more acceptable today than they were a few years ago and the scaremongering of the past will no longer work,” Lise Storm, a senior Middle East politics lecturer at Britain’s Exeter University, told Reuters.
“After the elections in Tunisia, Moroccans … will wonder: ‘Why not here?'”
