RABAT, 8 September 2007 — Moroccans voted yesterday in elections that could hand an Islamic party greater power than ever before in a country seen as a pillar of moderation in the Arab world.
Unemployment, corruption and poverty — not religion — seemed to drive most voters’ decisions. Yet the vote raised broader questions about the growing strength of political Islam in tourist-friendly US ally Morocco, and beyond.
The Justice and Development Party, or PJD, which advocates tolerance and denounces extremists, is predicted to win the largest number of seats in the 325-seat Parliament — though still fall far short of a majority. Ultimate power rests with King Mohamed VI, who names a prime minister based on the results of the vote.
From beach resorts to mountain villages, voters chose candidates from as many as 33 parties. The outcome was likely to lead to an awkward ruling coalition among the PJD and other top parties, including the center-left USFP and the conservative-leaning Istiqlal.
USFP and Istiqlal dominated the last governing coalition. The PJD, which was not part of the coalition, was the third largest party in Parliament with 42 seats.
Turnout was just over 16 percent at 2 p.m., the Interior Ministry said. The election outcome will depend heavily on turnout, which reached just 52 percent in the 2002 elections. The polls closed at 8 p.m. and results are expected today.
A bombing Thursday in neighboring Algeria that medics said killed at least 20 people cast a shadow over the voting. Some said it could blunt the PJD’s showing. PJD leader Saad Eddine Othmani said it would strengthen his party, which he sees as a bulwark against the kind of extremism that has fueled 15 years of violence against the Algerian government.
“We are waiting to win,” Othmani, an ever-smiling 51-year-old psychiatrist, said after casting a ballot at a school in the city of Sale, beneath children’s paintings of butterflies pasted on chipped concrete walls.
He denounced the “awful” attack in Algeria and said, “Morocco is well-placed to fight this blight.”
Fears of extremism spurred Algeria to abort 1992 parliamentary elections that an Islamic party was set to win, a move that touched off an insurgency that still simmers.
Morocco, though, has also spawned terrorists including those who staged the 2004 Madrid bombings and suicide attacks in Casablanca in 2003 and earlier this year. That violence has prompted a government crackdown.
Just a few kilometers separate Casablanca’s booming banking district from the trash-strewn slums of Sidi Moumen, home to several suicide bombers.
The PJD has distanced itself from those militants, and from some members’ calls for banning alcohol and requiring women to cover their heads.
PJD voters yesterday included young women in T-shirts and middle-class office workers in pinstripes, along with a few women in the niqab, a face covering.
The party looks to Turkey, long seen as an example of how democracy and Islam can coexist, for inspiration. Turkey saw its Islamic-rooted ruling party — also called Justice and Development — strengthened in July elections based on its strong record of economic reforms inspired by the West.
The PJD, which hopes to double its 42 current seats, has tapped mounting disillusionment with the parties in power, especially among the poor and jobless. Nearly 5 million of Morocco’s 33 million people live on less than $2 a day, according to the World Bank.
