OMM Redaksiyası
Fatima Zahra El Mansouri has been appointed Morocco’s first female prime minister after her centrist Authenticity and Modernity Party, known as Pam, won the most seats in last week’s parliamentary elections, according to the BBC.
Her appointment makes her only the second woman to lead a government in the Arab world, after Tunisia’s Najla Bouden.
King Mohammed VI selected the 50-year-old El Mansouri over Fouzi Lekjaa, Morocco’s football chief and a senior politician from the same party. She has served as mayor of Marrakesh for several years and was also a minister in the previous coalition government.
Career in politics
Morocco is a constitutional monarchy, although the king retains most political power. Under the constitution, the monarch appoints the head of government from the party that finishes first in elections to the House of Representatives.
El Mansouri, a lawyer by training, studied at Mohammed V University in Rabat before continuing her education in France and the United States, where she specialised in business and corporate law.
She entered politics after Pam was founded in 2008 and became Marrakesh’s first female mayor in 2009. She returned to the position after the 2021 elections.
From 2021, she served as minister for national territory planning, urban planning, housing and city policy under former Prime Minister Aziz Akhannouch. In February 2024, she became co-ordinator of Pam’s collective leadership.
El Mansouri has rejected descriptions of her as an “iron woman”. In an interview with Pam’s magazine in 2021, she said: “I am neither a woman of steel nor iron... I am a free activist.”
Coalition talks ahead
Pam won 97 seats, well short of the 198 needed for an absolute majority in the 395-member parliament. The party will therefore need to form a coalition.
It remains unclear which parties Pam will approach after its dispute with the National Rally of Independents, or RNI, which led the outgoing government in which Pam was a junior partner.
The Islamist Justice and Development Party increased its representation to 54 seats from 13 in the previous election, helped by the return of its leader, former Prime Minister Abdelilah Benkirane. Benkirane has said the party will remain in opposition and will not join a partnership with Pam.
Before her appointment, El Mansouri was asked whether the state would need to alter arrangements for Muslim religious ceremonies attended by the king, including Friday and Eid prayers, where men and women pray in separate sections.
She did not answer directly, instead praising the king as “the biggest advocate for women” in Morocco. “His Majesty is the holder of wisdom… If I am entrusted with the responsibility of head of government, it will be a great honour,” she said.
Despite ongoing debates in Morocco over issues including polygamy and equal inheritance rights, El Mansouri has rarely spoken publicly about women’s rights or gender inequality during her political career.
