الرئيسية
Abdelilah Benkirane, general secretary of the Justice
and Development Party (PJD) raises his fist as he arrives at the party's
headquarters in Rabat. The moderate Islamist party won a parliamentary
election for the first time, preliminary results showed Saturday, the
latest religious party to achieve huge gains on the back of the Arab
Spring.(AFP/Abdelhak Senna)
By Henri Mamarbachi, AFP
RABAT (AFP) - Morocco's moderate Islamist party won a
parliamentary election for the first time, preliminary results showed
Saturday, the latest religious party to achieve huge gains on the back
of the Arab Spring.
The victory by the Justice and Development
Party (PJD) comes just one month after Islamists won Tunisia's
post-revolution election and days before their predicted surge in
Egyptian polls.
With 288 out of the 395 seats up for grabs
awarded, the party had captured 80 seats in Friday's election, Interior
Minister Taib Cherkaoui told a news conference.
That is nearly
double the 45 seats won by Prime Minister Abbas el Fassi's Independence
Party which finished second and has headed a five-party coalition
government since 2007.
The interior ministry was to release final results on Sunday.
"We
thank the Moroccans who voted for the PJD and we can only be
satisfied," PJD secretary general Abdelilah Benkirane told reporters.
Cars
honked their horns while passengers threw fliers out of car windows
bearing images of a lamp, the party's symbol, in Morocco's seaside
capital Rabat after the partial results were released.
According
to a new constitution overwhelmingly approved in a July referendum, King
Mohammed VI must now pick the prime minister from the party that won
the most seats in parliament instead of naming whomever he pleases.
It
was the king who proposed changes to the constitution in March, as
autocratic regimes toppled in nearby Tunisia, Egypt, and Libya and
pro-democracy protests swelled at home.
King Mohammed is the
latest scion of a monarchy that has ruled the country for 350 years. The
new constitution curbs some, but not all, of his near-absolute powers.
The
Islamists will have to govern with other parties and Benkirane
acknowledged his party would need to tailor its programme to appease
prospective coalition partners.
The PJD was "open to everyone" when it came to forming alliances, he said.
"The
nub of our programme and of those who will govern with us will have a
double axis: democracy and good governance," Benkirane told the France
24 television channel.
The PJD has gradually increased its share of the vote in Morocco, seen as one of the most stable countries in the region.
After
winning just eight seats in 1997, it surged in popularity, scooping 42
seats in the 2002 election, the first of King Mohammed VI's reign.
It then increased its share in the last election in 2007 when it finished second with 47 seats.
The
party focused at first on social issues, such as opposition to summer
music festivals and the sale of alcohol, but has shifted to issues with
broader voter appeal like the fight against corruption and high
unemployment.
During the current campaign it promised to cut poverty in half and raise the minimum wage by 50 percent.
Unlike
the banned Islamist opposition group Justice and Charity, the Justice
and Development Party pledges its allegiance to the monarchy.
But Benkirane's past attacks on the Berber people and homosexuals have provoked controversy.
In 2010, he tried to ban a concert in Morocco by the openly gay singer Elton John.
Benkirane
said Western nations, on whose investment and tourism the country
relies heavily, had no reason to fear a PJD-led government.
"With the PJD there will never be surprises. We are going to develop relations with the West," he told AFP.
Two
parties that make up the outgoing governing coalition -- the
Independence Party and Socialist Union of Popular Forces - have said
they would be willing to govern with the Islamist party.
In
Washington, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Saturday
congratulated Morocco on its parliamentary election but cautioned that
the task of building a democracy would require more "hard work."
Morocco's
pro-reform February 20 protest movement, behind protests calling for
more fundamental reform, had called on voters to boycott the elections.
Voter
turnout was 45.4 percent, up from 37 percent from the last
parliamentary election in 2007, but lower than the 51.6 percent turnout
recorded in 2002.
El Fassi called the turnout "positive" given the election boycott calls.
"The
consolidation of institutions and the promotion of democracy will
contribute greatly in the future to improving the turnout rate," he
added.