Morocco appoints its first woman prime minister as PAM leader begins coalition talks

King Mohammed VI appointed Fatima Ezzahra El Mansouri, in an announcement carried by the Royal Cabinet, as Morocco's prime minister on September 29, making her the first woman to hold the post in the kingdom's history and only the second woman to lead a government anywhere in the Arab world, after Najla Bouden in Tunisia. The appointment followed the September 23 parliamentary election in which El Mansouri's Authenticity and Modernity Party (PAM) finished first with 97 of the 395 seats in the House of Representatives, according to certified results published by Morocco's Interior Ministry, 31 more than its nearest rival but well short of the 198 needed to govern alone. "For the first time in our country's history, a woman is taking on the responsibility of leading the government," El Mansouri said in a televised address, calling the moment "truly historic" and "a source of pride not only for me but for all Moroccan women."

El Mansouri, who joined PAM the year it was founded, has twice served as mayor of Marrakesh, first from 2009 to 2015 and again since 2021. She now inherits a fractured parliament, a coalition still to be built, and a set of social demands left over from the largest youth protest movement Morocco has seen in years.

How PAM went from junior partner to first place

The result reverses 2021, when the National Rally of Independents (RNI), led by businessman Aziz Akhannouch, won 102 seats to PAM's 87 and formed a government with PAM and Istiqlal as junior partners. That coalition collapsed at the ballot box: the RNI lost 36 seats, falling to 66, while PAM gained 10 to reach 97. Istiqlal slipped to 65, and the Islamist Justice and Development Party (PJD), reduced to just 13 seats in 2021 amid anger over pandemic-era governance, more than quadrupled to 54. Turnout fell to 38.08 percent, down from roughly 50 percent in 2021.

PAM was founded in August 2008 by Fouad Ali El Himma, a royal adviser and former interior ministry official, through the merger of five smaller parties. It has never fully shaken a reputation, dating to its founding, as a vehicle built with palace encouragement to counterbalance Morocco's Islamist movement; critics have long described it as the party closest to the monarchy, with little fixed ideology beyond loyalty to the crown alongside some socially liberal positions on issues like women's rights. That "administration-aligned" label is why its win was read less as an ideological shift than as a vote against the outgoing government's handling of inflation, drought and public services.

A prime minister, but not a chief executive

Morocco's 2011 constitution, adopted after Arab Spring protests, created the position of "head of government" and requires the king to appoint that person from the party with the most seats, which is what allowed El Mansouri's nomination. The head of government sets domestic policy and runs the Council of Government. But the king remains head of state, supreme commander of the armed forces and "Commander of the Faithful" over religious affairs, and he alone chairs the separate Council of Ministers, appoints ministers after the head of government proposes them, and retains sole power to dissolve parliament. Scholars often call the system a "parliamentary monarchy" in form, but one where the palace still holds the final word on foreign policy and security, leaving the prime minister to manage the government rather than direct the state outright.

The coalition math, and why a PJD alliance looks unlikely

El Mansouri said her first task was internal PAM negotiations, "then with all political parties," before presenting a government proposal to the king. Within days she had scheduled meetings with an RNI delegation led by party president Mohamed Chouki and an Istiqlal delegation led by Secretary-General Nizar Baraka, according to Hespress. Sources inside the RNI told the outlet the party is ready to rejoin a PAM-led coalition despite internal dissent, and Istiqlal has signaled similar openness, making a reconstituted PAM-RNI-Istiqlal bloc, essentially the outgoing coalition with PAM now in the lead, the likely outcome.

A PAM-Istiqlal-PJD combination would be a genuine ideological stretch: PAM and Istiqlal are both centrist, palace-adjacent parties built around technocratic management, while the PJD is Islamist and has historically clashed with exactly that brand of administration-aligned governance. The question may be moot regardless. Both the PJD and the smaller Federation of Democratic Left have already announced they will sit in opposition rather than join any coalition, according to Al Jazeera, leaving the PJD's rebound to 54 seats to translate into a stronger opposition bench rather than a cabinet role.

The protests El Mansouri's government inherits

The vote comes almost exactly a year after Morocco's largest youth-led protest wave in recent memory. The "Gen Z 212" movement, organized largely through a Discord server that grew to roughly 250,000 members, erupted on September 27, 2025, after eight pregnant women died following complications from C-sections at a public hospital in Agadir. Demonstrations spread to at least 13 cities over three weeks, with three protesters killed and, by late October, more than 2,400 people charged and roughly 1,473 held in custody, according to CNN. Protesters demanded the government's resignation, the release of detainees, and a redirection of state spending from prestige projects, explicitly including 2030 World Cup preparations, toward hospitals and schools.

The outgoing government's response combined concessions with continued prosecutions: it raised combined health and education spending in the 2026 budget to roughly 140 billion dirhams, about 10 percent of GDP and a 16 percent increase, and passed legislation subsidizing up to 75 percent of campaign costs for candidates under 35, a measure that arguably helped enable El Mansouri's own rise. None of it satisfied the movement's core demands, and prosecutions of thousands of demonstrators were still moving through Morocco's courts as voters went to the polls a year later.

The World Cup spending protesters challenged

The infrastructure program that became a Gen Z 212 flashpoint is large and mostly already committed. Morocco, which will co-host the 2030 World Cup with Spain and Portugal, has budgeted roughly 190 billion dirhams (about $20 billion) across railways, highways, airports and stadiums, with its own stadium-related spending estimated at $5 to $6 billion, according to Morocco World News. That includes about 20.5 billion dirhams ($2.1 billion) to upgrade six existing stadiums and a planned new 115,000-seat stadium near Benslimane, budgeted at roughly 5 billion dirhams (€459 million) as a candidate venue for the final. Roughly 25 billion dirhams comes directly from the public budget through 2030, with state-owned companies contributing a further 17 billion dirhams toward transport links, commitments the incoming government is expected to maintain even as it negotiates how to balance them against the social spending demanded in the streets a year ago.

Reaction and what comes next

Coverage outside Morocco leaned heavily on the appointment's symbolism: Saudi network Al Arabiya said El Mansouri "made history in Moroccan politics," and several outlets noted she is only the second woman to lead an Arab government. Reaction inside Morocco has been more mixed, with some commentators warning the appointment risks entrenching a "two-speed" Morocco, in which a modernizing elite advances while the healthcare access, education quality and youth unemployment that drove Gen Z 212 into the streets remain unaddressed for most citizens. El Mansouri has pledged "realistic solutions" and set no public "red lines" on which parties she will negotiate with. Her meetings with RNI and Istiqlal, scheduled within days of her appointment, will determine whether Morocco gets a government resembling the one voters just punished at the polls, or something genuinely different, before she must present a finished coalition proposal to the king.