RABAT, 10 September 2007 — Moroccan nationalist party Istiqlal yesterday vowed to keep an alliance with Socialists after emerging as the surprise winner in elections marred by the lowest turnout ever in the North African nation.

“We will respect the commitments that we have signed with our friends ... we must work toward a common position on the formation of a government,” said Abbas El-Fassi, secretary-general of Istiqlal, Morocco’s oldest party.

Istiqlal won 52 seats in Friday’s vote, five more than the moderate Islamist Justice and Development Party (PJD), according to preliminary results quoted by Interior Minister Chakib Benmoussa. The Union of Socialist Popular Forces (USFP), which previously held the most seats, won only 36.

Benmoussa said the turnout was just 37 percent of the 15.5 million electorate, down from 52 percent in the last election in 2002. Held back by Morocco’s proportional representation system, no party has a majority and intense negotiations over forming a governing coalition will now follow.

Istiqlal was founded in 1944 and played a major role in campaigning for independence from France, which was achieved in 1956. It received 16 percent of the vote to add four seats to its total from the last election in 2002.

The Islamist party cried foul after failing to become the biggest party as it had hoped for. “Money from our rivals was changing hands all over the place,” PJD No. 2 Lahcen Daoudi said.

But international observers gave the vote their stamp of approval. “Overall the vote was conducted in an orderly manner, even if the members of the delegation were informed of isolated irregularities on election day,” the monitors said in a preliminary report.

A statement issued by the European Union in Brussels hailed what it called the election’s success and transparence as well as efforts to get more women out to vote. “The democratic conditions in which the elections took place show Morocco’s commitment to the process of political, economic and social reforms undertaken at the highest state levels in recent years.”