RABAT — Abdelilah Benkirane, leader of Morocco’s Justice and Development Party (PJD) said that the party’s Islamic reference is not important for the Moroccan citizens, as it does not determine the party’s orientation.
During a special session of the PJD’s National Council on Saturday 22nd in the city of Salé, north of Rabat, the recently re-elected Abdelilah Benkirane stated that the Islamic reference of the PJD is not important for the nation’s citizens, as it has no practical implication in reality.
“What do people see in a party’s reference?” Benkirane asked his audience. “They see its results. Whether it is an Islamic reference, a Marxist reference, or a Liberal reference, what are the practical implications of this reference? How does it distinguish you? What we understand from our Islamic reference is that we are part of this [Muslim] society.”
Benkirane added that the Moroccan citizens did not vote for the PJD because of its Islamic reference and that the party is not a religious sect but a political party founded in ethical and principled politics:
“People did not give us their votes because we are religious. We obtained only 9 seats in 1997 and 42 seats in 2002 even if we were more religious than we are now.”
The PJD’s Secretary-General also called on his party members to be open to all components of Moroccan society, and specifically to the Moroccan youth, noting that the “PJD is not a party for only veiled women.”
During the election campaign, Benkirane stated in an interview with the French-language news website, Le360, that the PJD has no connection with the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and elsewhere:
“For over 30 years, I’ve been repeating this to those who want to listen. Not only are we different from the Muslim Brotherhood, but we also have no relationship with them. We don’t resemble them. In our beginning, in the 1970s, we read the books of the Muslim Brotherhood, and we are not embarrassed to say it, but we have since evolved into what we are now.”
Edited by Ghita Benslimane
