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Rabat – Disgraced career politician Hamid Chabat is making headlines again for his attacks on current Independence Party Secretary General, Nizar Baraka.
During a live broadcast on his official Facebook page, the former mayor of Fez stated that he is “the legitimate SG of Istiqlal, democratically and legally.”
He directly attacked Nizar Baraka, saying that he accepted him into the party despite his “inexperience in politics.”
Chabat’s bitter and unilateral antics occured after the Independence party’s Secretary General denied plans to grant the politician an electoral endorsement for his campaign.
Nizar Baraka confirmed on Wednesday, July 7, that his party will not grant an endorsement to Hamid Chabat, precluding him from running in the communal elections in the city of Fez on the Independence Party ticket.
“For various reasons, one of which is related to the former status that Hamid Chabat had as the head of the Istiqlal party, we view that a former leader of the party should not demean himself to run for municipal elections in Fez,” stated Baraka during the Maghreb Arab Press Forum where he was a speaking guest.
“Chabat thinks that he can go back to the old days when he was in power,” an Istiqlal MP told Morocco World News when asked about the former mayor’s latest attacks.
“He is a disgruntled fellow, who once had power but misused it. He ganged up with conspirationists and squandered it.”
Chabat’s record and subsequent self-imposed exile following his disgraceful term as the party’s secretary general, and losing the mayoral seat in Fez to the Justice and Development party (PJD), made him unpopular in both the public’s eye and within the party.
Defending himself against rumors of collusion with other parties to guarantee yet another mandate, Chabat told Le Site Info that they’re “just allegations and malicious rumors.”
His absence from the national political scene during Morocco’s most challenging year was duly noted by the electorate and the political sphere. The politician resided in Germany and Turkey for over 3 years, and returned following the announcement of the upcoming election dates.
As a matter of record, Chabat is still registered as a member of parliament and is receiving all the benefits associated with the role, however, he left his seat vacant in the legislature while living abroad after submitting a medical certificate.
The MP insists that the city’s declining state began after his party in 2015 lost its leadership, while Fez still suffers under the remnants of the Chabat mandate.
Records, however, prove otherwise.
The 12-year reign of Chabat as the head of the spiritual capital of the country has been plagued by countless scandals and failures, including numerous allegations of corruption, fraudulent contracting deals, suspicious land transfers in the municipality, and blatant nepotism.
Chabat maintained his alternative version of facts in another live facebook broadcast, saying that “the PJD’s mandate was disastrous for the city, Istiqlal needs to reclaim Fez to correct the PJD’s disastrous term.”
Despite the PJD demonstrating a similar lack of competence, Chabat refuses to acknowledge, at least publicly, that his constituents know that the central issue is not his competence or lack thereof.
The public lost their trust in the career politician due to a series of unfulfilled campaign promises, the successive scandals involving him in stolen land cases, and his payments of taxpayer money to incompetent contractors.
Hamid Chabat’s condescending speech disregarded his illegal acts during his time as mayor, his relinquishment of responsibility as MP during Morocco’s most challenging political years, in addition to his widely known incompetence as a politician.
As he attempts to weave his way back onto the Moroccan political scene, the public’s sentiment appears to have remained unchanged, a sentiment that is massively echoed online.
