Casablanca – Justice and Development Party regained a seat the region of Casablanca after it denounced a case of“fraud” in election results.
According to the Arabic new source Alaoual, the Constitutional Union (UC) candidate Amine Chafiq was announced as the winner of the seat in the Médiouna Province in the Casablanca-Settat region after what was described as “manipulation” in the Regional Center’s records.
The records of office 11 located in Sidi Hajjaj in Médiouna Constituency had announced that the UC candidate gained 74 votes. However, the Regional Record contained an additional 400 votes for the same candidate.
The addition of the votes in turn reversed the results and announced the UC candidate as the winner of the constituency with 6501 votes, followed by the Justice and Development Party (PJD) candidate with 6312 votes.
As the records of the central offices showed that the PJD candidate headed the race versus the 6101 for the UC candidate, the PJD Head of List, Said Tazi, and other members of the party organized a sit-in near the prefecture to protest against the alleged “fraud.”
The sit-in was organized Saturday after the governor rejected their request to recount the votes and correct “the mistake.” The next day, Tazi and his runner-up, Hicham Lemsaadi, met with the PJD’s lawyers and announced their decision to resort to court.
The regional authorities later announced that they fixed the “mistake” in the vote count. This made the PJD regain its seat in the constituency, and increase its total number of seats to 130.
Edited by Natalie Yazhary
