Written By | International News Agencies
Morocco's Palace-Aligned PAM Wins Low-Turnout Vote, but Islamist Comeback and a Coalition Puzzle Shape What Comes Next
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RABAT, Morocco
Morocco's Authenticity and Modernity Party (PAM) won the most seats in last week's legislative elections, but it did so in a vote that fewer than four in ten registered voters bothered to cast in, and it now faces a coalition puzzle it has partly made for itself. The party took 97 of the 395 seats in the House of Representatives, well short of the 198 needed for a majority, and has ruled out renewing its partnership with the National Rally of Independents (RNI), its partner in government since 2021. Meanwhile, the Islamist Justice and Development Party (PJD) roughly quadrupled its representation. Under the 2011 constitution, King Mohammed VI will choose the next head of government from the winning party, and the person he picks could become only the second woman to lead a government in the Arab region.
The results
Voters went to the polls on Wednesday, September 23, to elect all 395 members of the lower house. Provisional results announced by the Interior Ministry and reported by Al Jazeera and The National put the seat counts as follows:
The three parties of the outgoing coalition, PAM, the RNI and Istiqlal, together hold 228 seats, comfortably above the 198-seat majority threshold. That arithmetic explains why many commentators initially described the outcome as a win for the "ruling coalition." But it hides a political fact: the three parties campaigned against one another, and PAM's leaders have said they will not renew the partnership with the RNI, according to Al Jazeera and The National. Since the RNI lost 36 seats, and PAM is the largest party, the balance of power inside any new government will look very different from the one that governed for five years.
A vote that fewer people cast
The turnout figure is arguably the headline. Al Jazeera's report on the provisional results cited 38.02 percent; the results posted on the government portal, Al Jazeera's separate analysis and Wikipedia give 38.08 percent. Either way, about 38 percent of Morocco's roughly 15.8 million registered voters took part, which Al Jazeera described as the second-lowest turnout since King Mohammed VI took the throne in 1999. The National put it as the lowest since the 36.8 percent recorded in 2007. Participation was about 50 percent in 2021, so the drop is around 12 to 13 percentage points; the exact 2021 baseline varies by source (50.35 percent in one, 50.86 percent in another), which is why this report avoids a more precise comparison.
Analysts quoted by Al Jazeera link the low participation to "widespread disengagement following youth-led protests last year over jobs, healthcare and education." Those 2025 demonstrations, led by young people who organized online, were the most significant public challenge to the government in years. Parties competed intensely for younger voters this year, and the state changed the rules to encourage participation: a 2025 reform emphasized candidate integrity, youth participation and female representation, with one-third of regional seats reserved for women, according to Wikipedia's summary of the electoral framework. The six percent electoral threshold was eliminated, and seat allocation now rests on registered voters rather than ballots cast.
Participation was uneven. Southern areas such as Laayoune-Sakia El Hamra reached 77 percent, per Al Jazeera, while other regions lagged well behind. Interior Minister Abdelouafi Laftit said the vote "took place without any major incidents across the country, apart from a few isolated events," according to the Rio Times; in remarks carried on the government portal he described conditions as "normal and favorable," with international observers present. The ministry said 28 parties fielded 1,847 lists with 7,277 candidates for the 395 seats.
The Islamist comeback
The most striking individual result belongs to the PJD. The party led the government for a decade after the Arab Spring, peaking at 125 seats in 2016, then collapsed to 13 in 2021. Its recovery to 54 seats, per Al Jazeera, is a remarkable reversal, though it remains far below its previous peak. The Rio Times names Abdelilah Benkirane, the former prime minister, as the party's leader.
Why did it rebound? Al Jazeera's analysis points to fragmentation and disengagement: with so many voters staying home and the governing parties weakened by their own rivalries, a party with a loyal, organized base could gain ground. Still, coalition politics limit what it can do with the result. Al Jazeera reports that "a longstanding rivalry with PAM makes a coalition between the two parties unlikely."
The coalition puzzle
Under Morocco's system, the king appoints the head of government from the party that finishes first, and that person then tries to assemble a majority. PAM, with 97 seats, needs 101 more. The available arithmetic is instructive, and it is our own calculation from the reported seat totals rather than a reported forecast. PAM and Istiqlal together would hold 162 seats. Adding the Popular Movement would bring the total to 191, still seven short. Reaching 198 would require either the RNI (66 seats) or the PJD (54 seats), or a broader arrangement of smaller parties. PAM has ruled out the first, and the rivalry makes the second improbable. That leaves negotiations that could be lengthy and that will test how much the palace-backed party is willing to give up to govern.
The personalities matter too. Two names are circulating for prime minister: Fatima Ezzahra El Mansouri, the mayor of Marrakech, who is also urban planning minister, and Fouzi Lekjaa, the budget minister and president of the Royal Moroccan Football Federation, according to the Rio Times and Al Jazeera. Wikipedia reports that Lekjaa joined PAM in July, one of several defections that scrambled the coalition during the campaign. The party has not officially designated its candidate. If Mansouri were appointed she would become the second woman to hold such a position in the Arab region, after Tunisia's Najla Bouden, according to The National.
What the next government must do
Whoever leads the coalition inherits a demanding agenda. PAM campaigned on creating one million jobs and expanding investment in health care, social protection and wages, according to The National. Those promises answer the grievances that drove the 2025 protests: unemployment among the young, strained public hospitals and schools, and the cost of living. The government will also oversee the preparations for the 2030 World Cup, which Morocco co-hosts with Spain and Portugal, a project that has been a source of national pride and, for critics, of concern about spending priorities when basic services are under strain.
The political incentives cut in two directions. The palace-aligned party has an interest in showing that the electoral process can deliver, because low turnout weakens the legitimacy of any government. But the more it relies on partners, the more it must trade off positions and policies, and its partners, weakened or not, have their own bases to satisfy.
Analysis: a stable system, a shaky mandate
There is a temptation to read Morocco's vote as a simple continuity story: the monarchy's preferred party finished first, the king will choose the prime minister, and the state's core institutions are not at stake. That reading is largely correct in constitutional terms. But the election shows three pressures beneath the surface.
First, legitimacy. A turnout near 38 percent means the next government will begin with a thin popular mandate, which matters because the 2025 protests were, at bottom, about whether institutions respond to young citizens. If participation is a proxy for trust, the trend is going the wrong way. Second, the shape of the coalition. The end of the RNI-PAM partnership is a significant realignment, since the two parties governed together since 2021; how the RNI's 36-seat loss and PAM's refusal to work with it reshape the cabinet will be the first real test of the new arrangement. Third, the return of the PJD, which restores an organized Islamist opposition to a parliament that had lost most of its. It may not govern, but it will have a larger platform from which to press on living costs and social policy.
None of this points to instability in the near term. Morocco has been through coalition negotiations before, and the palace retains considerable influence over the outcome. But the combination of low turnout, a fractured governing majority and unresolved youth grievances suggests the next cabinet's margin for error is narrow.
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