Morocco World News and Maghreb Intelligence
Morocco World News and Maghreb Intelligence
Rabat, Nov 9, 2012
Finally, we realize that the Justice and Development Party, whose leader Abdelilah Benkirane presides over the destinies of the Moroccan government since January, is also a victim of the symptoms from which the Socialist Union of Popular Forces (USFP) suffered before. In 1998 when Abderahmane Youssoufi had accepted the proposal of Hassan II to lead a government of “consensual alternation”, the USFP, which was the most powerful party of the country, was quickly shaken by a dissident movement led by “young wolves” who criticized Youssoufi for aligning himself too much with the monarchy.
Today, Abdelilah Benkirane seems to encounter the same trouble. His main problems are neither the opposition parties-RNI-PAM and USFP which are still regarded as harmless, nor Hamid Chabat who is too odd to be a real danger, but rather the incisive Abdellah Bouanou, president of the Justice and Development Party’s parliamentary group in the House of representatives.
The latter, who was able to become the leader of his party’s members despite the obvious hostility of the head of government, is firing on all cylinders, often embarrassing Abdelilah Benkirane. On the occasion of the last meeting of the General Secretariat of the Justice and Development Party, the governing body of the Islamist party had strong terms for the virulent representative of Meknès. According to sources in the Islamist party, the head of the government is increasingly mad at Abdellah Bouanou. He suspects him of feeding a personal agenda through his outputs deemed “untimely” and often “inappropriate”. According to our sources, the leader of the parliamentary group would be inspired by Ahmed Raissouni, the former head of the Movement of Unity and Reform (MUR) who continues to have much influence on the Justice and Development Party’s executives.
