Moroccans headed to polls early on Wednesday to cast their ballots to vote for 395 deputies of the House of Representatives and at least 31,000 communal and regional representatives.
With about 17.9 million registered voters, the country will hold its third elections since the 2011 Arab spring movement which led to 10 years of the Justice and Development Party in rule.
The majority of seats will likely be dominated by the Justice and Development Party, Authenticity and Modernity Party and the National Rally of Independents, though it is hard to predict results, due to a law reform in 2016 introduced by the Ministry of Interior, banning public polls on the run-up to the ballot.
A statement by the Ministry of Interior stated that the process of opening voting offices took place under normal circumstances.
The Justice and Development Party aspires to lead the government for a third term, but questions loom on whether this is going to happen due to an electoral system change introduced in March which allocated seats based on registered voters, rather than the ballots.
The PJD will likely lose seats despite an aggressive campaign against RNI’s Aziz Akhannouch, RNI leader and Morocco’s richest man, accused of “lack of integrity suspicions”.
Akhannouch, who has been serving as the Minister of Agriculture since 2007 criticized the PJD’s statements, saying they ” admitted to failure.”
The campaign leading up to the elections was largely online due to the pandemic and focused mainly on debates around back and forth accusations of using money to buy votes, rather than policy changes.
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