As the legislative elections approach, one possibility is taking hold in public debate: that, for the first time in Morocco’s history, a woman could become head of government. Could Fatima Ezzahra El Mansouri embody this possibility? Her career, resilience, and the new dynamic created within the PAM by the arrival of Fouzi Lekjaa are giving this campaign a new intensity. Whatever the verdict at the ballot box, something is already beginning to move.
There are candidacies that are announced long in advance. And then there are those that circumstances gradually establish in the public mind, even before those concerned openly claim them. Fatima Ezzahra El Mansouri’s potential candidacy for the position of head of government still belongs to the realm of possibility. Moroccans have not yet voted. No result can be taken for granted and, in a democracy, no poll will ever replace the verdict of the ballot box.
But politics also means looking at possibilities when they begin to take shape. For the first time in Morocco, the prospect of seeing a woman lead the government is no longer merely a figment of the imagination. It is entering the realm of reality.
Article 47 of the Constitution stipulates that the King appoints the Head of Government from within the party that comes first in elections to the House of Representatives. If the PAM were to cross that line first, Fatima Ezzahra El Mansouri’s name would necessarily become part of the discussion.
She would not be there simply because she is a woman and Morocco should produce yet another symbol. She would be there because she has a respectable political history behind her, victories, challenges, responsibilities she has assumed, and that ability to endure which, in politics, ultimately always matters.
The long road of politics
Fatima Ezzahra El Mansouri did not emerge as an electoral deadline approached. A lawyer by training, she joined the PAM during the early years of its development. She invested her energy, her name, her reputation, and a significant part of her life in it.
Coming from a prominent family in Marrakech, firmly established in the city and its history, she could have chosen a more comfortable life. But she chose public life and the exposure that comes with it. Politics exposes everything: your decisions, your mistakes, your hesitations, your family, and sometimes even your silences. It lifts you up one day and puts you in the dock the next.
For a woman, this exposure is often even more brutal. Where a man’s ambition is considered natural, a woman’s ambition quickly becomes a source of suspicion. She is asked to be strong, but criticized for being firm. She is expected to exercise authority, then labeled authoritarian. She is expected to prove herself, while the threshold at which that proof would finally be considered sufficient is repeatedly moved.
Fatima Ezzahra El Mansouri has gone through all of this.
Elected mayor of Marrakech in 2009, she opened a breach. Her election was challenged, annulled at first instance, and then reinstated by the administrative courts. She could have remained merely the temporary face of a political novelty. Yet she chose to return. She became a parliamentarian, a minister, and then mayor of Marrakech once again. Above all, she weathered the successive crises of her party without disappearing with them.
She has sometimes stumbled. She may have made mistakes. But she learned to regain her footing, correct her course, and continue moving forward. Perhaps that is what it means to have staying power. Politics is not the art of never falling. It is the ability to get back up without losing your direction.
The arrival of Fouzi Lekjaa
Then Fouzi Lekjaa joined the PAM.
His membership immediately revived commentary, projections, and scenarios. Many believed they were witnessing the beginning of a confrontation. They saw a powerful man enter the scene, accustomed to exercising state authority, with strong popularity and a reputation for effectiveness. They immediately concluded that he had come to take Fatima Ezzahra El Mansouri’s place and position himself to claim, tomorrow, the position of head of government.
As if the arrival of a powerful man should automatically lead to the disappearance of the woman who had opened the door for him.
This reflex may say more about the way we view politics than about the relationship between the two personalities.
I myself described Fouzi Lekjaa’s arrival as a very strong acquisition for the PAM. I still believe that. He knows the state, its balances, and its constraints. He has a results-oriented approach and a direct way of getting to the point. Moroccans also know the role he played in the transformation of national football.
I know something about this way of being. I myself come from the Oriental region, where words are sometimes fewer, temperaments rougher, and commitment often wholehearted. Fouzi Lekjaa did not join the PAM to play a supporting role. His presence necessarily changes the political game, especially his new party’s electoral calculus.
But it does not condemn anyone to disappear.
People expected a confrontation between an established woman and a man arriving with his power. But perhaps we are discovering something else: two temperaments that complement each other and force the entire campaign to pick up the pace.
This does not mean that one will necessarily come first, or that the other will. It is far too early to assign roles, and even more so to write the election results before voters have cast their ballots. But something is happening. They complement each other. They set a pace. And, in doing so, they force others to move, respond, and perhaps even reinvent themselves.
And she dances
On the campaign trail, Fatima Ezzahra El Mansouri speaks, brings people together, reaches out… And she dances.
Just consider a recent scene in Berkane, where she danced to the rhythms of reggada before hundreds and hundreds of people. The daughter of Marrakech danced in the heart of the Oriental region. The image was powerful. The crowd was won over. And that sort of milestone follows the PAM movement, picks up the rhythm, and for a few moments erases the distance that normally separates the podium from those listening to her.
Yet this scene should not be reduced to a folkloric campaign interlude. It says something about this woman. It speaks to her charming ability to enter a territory, embrace its codes, its music, and its joy. A way of doing politics with words, of course, but also with gestures, looks, and the body.
She dances after going through so many challenges. She dances while many expected her to be tense, defensive, perhaps already concerned about Fouzi Lekjaa’s arrival. She dances and, through that dance, seems to respond in her own way: she is still here.
The daughter of Marrakech did not come to Berkane to disappear in a man’s stronghold. She came to campaign there alongside him. And he is playing along.
In this image, perhaps something other than the announced duel is emerging. And what it shows is a woman who is not afraid to embrace another person’s strength and a man who does not seem to need to diminish the woman who brought him in to establish his own presence.
Adding without disappearing: that too is a possible definition of leadership.
The step aside
Some time ago, I called on Morocco’s electoral campaign to take a step aside.
By that, I meant the need to leave the established paths, bring in new personalities, shift the lines, and accept that men and women known for something else should come forward and speak openly to the society in which they live.
An election campaign should not merely be a moment when parties repeat what they have been saying for years. It should be that particular moment when a society questions itself, discovers new faces, hears unexpected proposals, and accepts that the political game can be slightly shaken up.
Apparently, that step aside is now taking place.
Fouzi Lekjaa’s arrival at the PAM is one example. The way Fatima Ezzahra El Mansouri welcomed him without giving the impression of stepping aside is another. And that dance in Berkane, almost literally, may be its most beautiful image.
Taking a step aside does not mean leaving the path. It means finding another way to move forward.
The right to be judged
My longstanding commitment to women’s rights obviously does not leave me indifferent to the possibility of seeing a woman become head of the Moroccan government.
Yes, I would like that to happen. Not so that Morocco can simply display a modern image, nor to add another photograph to its institutional album. I want it because a country cannot ask half of its population to contribute fully to its development while leaving them to believe that certain responsibilities will remain permanently beyond their reach.
A woman at the head of government would not magically resolve the inequalities and discrimination that still run through our society. A woman in power does not, by herself, constitute a policy in favor of all women. We must be wary of symbols when they change nothing in real life.
But sometimes a symbol can also bring down a boundary that was thought to be immutable. It then tells young girls that the final step is not forbidden to them. It forces men to look differently at the sharing of responsibilities. It quietly shifts what a society considers possible.
Fatima Ezzahra El Mansouri must be judged on her project, her record, her decisions, and her ability to respond to the expectations of Moroccans. She should receive no leniency because she is a woman. But she should not face an additional trial for the same reason.
The choice will belong to voters. The campaign will have to distinguish between programs, test character, and reveal abilities. No one can yet know who will come first, which alliances will become possible, or who will be called upon to lead the next government.
But something has already changed. The idea that a woman could lead the Moroccan government has now entered the realm of possibility.
I had called on this campaign to take a step aside. I did not know that one day, in Berkane, a woman from Marrakech would give it a face, a rhythm, and almost a dance.
