By Safae El Othmani
By Safae El Othmani
Tunis – Secretary-General of Morocco’s Party of Authenticity and Modernity (PAM) has accused the Justice and Development Party (PJD), led by incumbent Premier, Abdelilah Benkirane, of acting as “a foreign agent”.
Speaking in a an editorial posted on PAM’s website, the party’s Secretary-General Ilias El Omari vowed that PAM will speak up against all attempts to carve up and maneuver Moroccan politics.
Speaking in a vehemently pejorative jargon, El Omari slammed the PJD as a party standing up for “a savage doctrine” and sponsoring “collusion networks” both at home and overseas.
In El Omari’s terms, PJD’s strategic goal is to shatter the sovereignty and magnitude of Morocco’s cultural legacy and to fragment its historical integrity.
El Omari threatened to wage an “international war” against PJD and to instigate ad-hominem campaigns, nationwide and overseas, so as to raise Morocco’s and the world’s awareness about the dangers of “extremism” allegedly propped up by such parties as the PJD.
He described his defeat in the October 7 parliamentary elections as “a heroic and decisive chapter” written by the votes cast by the party’s male and female backers.
In a speech broadcast live by Morocco World News just a few hours after the counting, PJD’s leader Benkirane said: “The October 7 polls prove that maneuvers, cunning, deception, and lies have short legs. They just have short legs.”
“The Moroccan people is a great people, one that deserves to live in the heart of democracy. Morocco shall see better days and a brighter future soon,” he vowed.
Results in Morocco’s national elections held on October 7 showed the moderate Islamist Party of Justice and Development were in the lead, winning 18 more parliament seats in the Chamber of Representatives with a comfortable margin from its closest rival the Party of Authenticity and Modernity (PAM).
Abdul-Wahab Kayyali, a doctoral candidate in political science at George Washington University, said “these elections, specifically, matter a lot … and will show whether 2011 was just a blip on the radar screen” in gauging Morocco’s path toward reform.
