By Mohsin el-Hassouni and Sinikka Tarvainen
Rabat (m&c) – A row between the palace and prime minister-designate Abdelilah Benkirane’s Islamists has delayed the formation of Morocco’s first Islamist government by more than a week.
Officially, there are no problems between the Party of Justice and Development (PJD), which won a resounding victory in the November 25 elections, and King Mohammed VI’s circle.
But Morocco has been without a government for more than a month, and media reports attribute the delay partly to a row over Mustafa Ramid – a lawyer with sympathies for the February 20 protest movement, whom Benkirane wants to make his justice minister.
The palace now appears set to accept Ramid, with the PJD emerging as the winner in the power struggle, the newspapers al-Massae and Assabah reported. Morocco was expected to get a government possibly this week.
The PJD will likely form a coalition government with previous prime minister Abbas el-Fassi’s nationalist party Istiqlal, the formerly communist PPS and the centrist MP.
The PJD was expected to take key ministries such as finance, foreign affairs, public works and justice. Psychiatrist and leading PJD politician Saad-Eddine el-Othmani was tipped for foreign minister, while PJD economist Najib Boulif was expected to become finance minister.
The elections were held nearly a year in advance in response to the Arab Spring uprisings, which were spreading in the North African kingdom.
They followed a referendum endorsing a new constitution aimed at boosting the powers of the government and parliament at the expense of those of the king.
While the new constitution will reduce royal interference in the appointment of key ministers, Mohammed VI’s councillors opposed the choice of Ramid, according to media reports.
Ramid has defended Islamist terrorist suspects, been active in human rights organizations, criticized the security services, and is known to sympathize with the February 20 protest movement.
Mohammed VI reportedly dislikes Islamists, but the constitution obliged him to appoint Benkirane as prime minister after the PJD took 107 of 395 seats in parliament.
The PJD’s victory was the second for a moderate Islamist party in democratic elections in North Africa after popular uprisings toppled the rulers of Egypt, Libya and Tunisia, where the Ennahda party won the country’s first free elections and is part of the new coalition government.
The PJD was not expected to impose sweeping fundamentalist reforms in Morocco, a liberal Arab country and long-time ally of the West.
The party earlier said it supported the creation of Islamic banks.
The el-Fassi government presided over an average 3-per-cent economic growth, seen as a good performance during the global financial crisis, even if it was partly because of good harvests.
The new government was expected to face less protests than the previous one, given that the February 20 movement has been losing steam.
The large non-parliamentary Islamist movement, al-Adl w’al-Ihsane (Justice and Spirituality), announced in December that its representatives would no longer attend February 20 protests amid problems with the secularist views of the other demonstrators.
Some commentators said the movement wanted to back the new Islamist government, even if many of al-Adl w’al-Ihsane’s members are more radical than the PJD in their views.
13113
