Morocco’s election campaigns turn to markets as voting day approaches

With Morocco’s parliamentary election only days away, candidates are intensifying their presence in public spaces that draw large numbers of voters, particularly markets in both urban and rural areas.

The increased activity comes as the campaign period nears its end, with candidates using markets to meet voters directly, present their political platforms and seek support ahead of Wednesday’s vote for the House of Representatives.

The election will determine the members of the lower house of Parliament and pave the way for the formation of a new government to oversee public affairs for the next five years.

Political science professor Rachid Lazraq said markets offer parties access to a diverse concentration of people, particularly groups with weaker connections to formal political institutions.

“Markets are spaces that allow parties to reach diverse groups of people, particularly those who are distant from institutional channels of participation,” Lazraq told Hespress. He said they also allow candidates to construct an image of proximity by interacting directly with voters in their everyday surroundings.

Lazraq described the focus on markets in both cities and rural areas as the electoral use of spaces that normally serve broader social functions.

“The market does not serve only an economic function; it also constitutes a local public space where networks of kinship and neighborhood intersect,” he said.

According to Lazraq, the emphasis on markets may also reflect what he described as a weakening of traditional mechanisms of political organization, with parties seeking to replace them with direct forms of engagement that can also be circulated through traditional and digital media.

He said the trend reflects a shift from party mobilization based primarily on ideological and organizational affiliation toward more pragmatic, field-based campaigning targeting undecided voters and those with weaker ties to political parties.

But Lazraq cautioned that visibility in markets does not necessarily translate into lasting political support.

“The electoral impact of this presence in markets remains linked to the parties’ ability to turn temporary interaction into sustainable political trust,” he said. Seasonal appearances, he added, may be perceived as opportunistic electoral behavior if they are not accompanied by sustained engagement, mediation and responses to social demands.

Sociologist Ibrahim Hamdaoui offered a different perspective, arguing that current election campaigns have yet to reach a level capable of attracting the attention of younger voters, despite their large presence in the electorate.

Hamdaoui told Hespress that shortcomings in political discourse are pushing candidates toward markets and other public spaces in an effort to reach a broader cross-section of the population.

He said candidates sometimes rely on emotionally driven appeals to encourage people to participate in the vote, while offering limited detail on how their political choices would translate into concrete policies at the local and regional levels.

“There is a complete absence of any clear vision showing citizens how their political choices would be managed, whether at the local or territorial level,” Hamdaoui said.

He added that party discourse is failing to adequately address questions currently facing voters, suggesting that the physical presence of candidates in public spaces is not necessarily matched by substantive political debate.

With voting scheduled for Wednesday, Sept. 23, candidates are now entering the final stretch of a campaign in which direct contact with voters remains a central feature of political mobilization.