Rabat – On Saturday Socialist Union for Popular Forces (USFP) leader, Driss Lachgar, expressed the party’s support for the Head of Government, Saad Eddine Othmani.
Just a day before, Othmani’s party, Justice and Development Party (PJD), was labeled as “retrograde” and “obscurantist” by the its ally in a column published in USFP’s newspaper, “Al Itihad Al Ichtiraki”.
The picture might look surreal for some. But this is just how national politics are run nowadays.
Lachgar did not try to distance himself or his party from the controversial column, saying that it was a response to “PJD’s hawks.”
USFP’s leader vowed to counter “PJD’s hardliners and their backups in electronic and print media”. He added that his party “will not just sit silent while they continue with their misleading propaganda”.
The column’s writer, Youness Moujahid, said what he said was not an expression of his party’s position but rather a response to some people from PJD “who started criticizing Othmani and his cabinet even before it took office.”
USFP’s criticism seems like a repetition of the past where PJD, in the previous government (2011-2016) led by Abdelilah Benkirane, was constantly being criticized, from within the governmental coalition, by Istiqlal Party (PI) and the Rally of National Independents (RNI).
