Rabat - King Mohammed VI returned to Morocco on Tuesday following the end of his latest round tour of Africa. The King's visit has been widely anticipated as marking an end to the five months of delay in forming a government coalition.
Rabat – King Mohammed VI returned to Morocco on Tuesday following the end of his latest round tour of Africa. The King’s visit has been widely anticipated as marking an end to the five months of delay in forming a government coalition.
Since the appointment of Justice and Development Party’s (PJD) leader Abdelilah Benkirane as Head of Government on October 10, his negotiations with party leaders to determine which parties will lead the government for the next five years have reached a standstill, referred to by Moroccans as “Governmental deadlock.”
Benkirane has said that only after the Mohammed VI’s return from his tour of African countries would he meet with him and inform him whether a coalition can be formed or not.
It is still unclear what effect the PJD leader’s meeting with the King will have on the formation of a government coalition.“Benkirane has to adhere to uphold his recent announcements, such as [the one he made] during the PJD’s National Union of Labor, when Benkirane said that anyway after the return of the King to Morocco, there will be a solution to this delay of the formation of the government coalition,” political analyst Omar Cherkaoui told Morocco World News.
“If the government is formed, we will be able to finish existing in a political vacuum. If not, Benkirane will return to the King to announce his failure. Then the King has the validities to apply the article N° 42 of the constitution [which said that the King who is the supreme governor to respect the constitution], in accordance to its interpretation to the article N° 47 [which gives the King power to appoint a member from the majority party as Head of Government],” meaning that he might replace Benkirane with another member of the PJD.
Following his latest meeting with both Aziz Akhannouch, Secretary General of the National Rally of Independents Party (RNI) and Mohand Laenser, Secretary-General of the Popular Movement (MP), Benkirane stated he is waiting for the answer of both party leaders to form the coalition government, which would be the second since the reform of Morocco’s constitution in 2011.
Benkirane recently asserted that his decision to rule out the Social Union of Popular Forces Party (USFP) from parties and expressed his readiness to include the Constitutional Union (CU) among the major parties of the former parties, which Benkirane asserted would be included in the new government.
When asked for a prediction, Cherkaoui said, “There is a possibility that the government will be formed, and [there are] signs that a solution will be found.”
