Election night timeline: stress, humor and little respect for health measures

On the night of the September 8 election, while the nation was holding its breath waiting for the election’s official results announcement, Hespress English toured the Kingdom’s capital, Rabat, visiting the main political parties headquarters to report on the atmosphere among the political parties before the final moment that determined the future of Morocco for the next five years.

At 20:15, we climbed the tiny stairs leading to the Front of Democratic Forces party (FDF) office. Four male members were gathered around a table holding their phones, nervously updating their social media feeds.

They welcomed us with laugher and lighthearted jokes, saying at the moment they hadn’t received any results. They added with a pinch of humor that they were likely to lead the government, recalling with more seriousness the “honorable” history of the FDF during the past years, describing their party as “the party that has never failed the Moroccan people.”

Just right next to the FDF’s headquarters, in the National Rally of Independents (RNI) regional office, Asmae Ghlalou, the Hassan district list agent of the party, and four other female members welcomed us with wide smiles.

Their smiles widened as the young man on the phone started stating in a loud voice the first news of their party’s lead. Ghlalou said “we are in the lead, PJD is losing,” she continued raising her hands in Duae “Insha’Allah, a free fall for PJD.”

Less than 30 minutes before the 9 p.m curfew began, Moroccans started rushing through the streets of Rabat, heading back to their homes, watching in disquieted looks the journalists’ crews settled in front of parliament, ready to start reporting on the “judgment night”.

In the historical Istiqlal party headquarters, the atmosphere was more enthusiastic. A big hall was devoted to hosting media and party members. The journalists were divided into six tables, in the respect of social distancing.

Party members were wearing pink scarves, the signature color of the party, and sitting crowded on white couches, taking down their masks to sip tea or to talk closely to a colleague.

It’s 21:03, the majority party in the past two election offices, PJD, was crowded by international journalists, sitting in a small hall, with little respect for health measures, waiting for the first reaction of the party on the preliminary results.

The atmosphere became high-strung when minister Abdellah Boinou took to the stage to claim that “the illegal use of money” during the election will highly affect the results. He continued with a nervous tone “these excesses will stain the reputation of our country.”

The Secretary-General of the opposition Authenticity and Modernity Party, Abdellatif Ouahbi, made similar, but more specific, statements in the last days.

“We mean the National Rally of Independents, and we accuse it of flooding the electoral arena with money,” he said, reported by AFP.

Outside the PJD office, a white car passes, its driver shouting the name of PJD’s first competitor, Akhannouch, the leader of RNI, in an attempt to provoke the members of the Islamic party. His attempt failed.

Saad Eddine Othmani, the secretary-general of PJD, took to the same stage later and repeated a series of accusations before closing the office in front of journalists hours ahead of the announcement of the official results.

At 21:48, we entered the Authenticity and Modernity Party’s headquarters in Agdal. Three bodyguards on the main door were scanning visitors with bothered looks and peevish faces.

Inside, journalists were gathering in a small garden with no respect for health measures while the office building’s glass door was closed in front of them and guarded by another bodyguard who shared the same bothered looks as the ones in the main door.

After 10 minutes, the PAM candidate in Rabat, Mehdi Bensaid, came out of the glass door. He responded ironically to Hespress’ journalists’ request for a comment on the early result, saying “are we in a match”, Bensaid said laughing nervously as he refused to give any information about the results.

At 00:49, after the announcement of Bensaid’s win in Rabat, the newly elect entered the digital room under the cheers of his team while journalists crowded in the tiny garden, and watching the scene from the window, started leaving the PAM headquarters after waiting for the their leader’s speech, Abdel Latif Ouhbi, which didn’t’ happen.

Lawyer Abdel Latif Ouhbi has headed the Authenticity and Modernity Party since last year 2020. He joined it in 2010 from leftist parties, with promises of a different era under his leadership.

The Authenticity and Modernity Party, and its symbol tractor, was founded in 2008 by Fouad Ali El Himma, Secretary of State in the Ministry of Interior at the time and current advisor to Moroccan King Mohammed VI.

In the Federation of the Democratic Left (FGD), there were no bodyguards waiting for us. In a small apartment, without any media presence, the party members were gathering in the sitting room, few of them were making jokes about being the head of the government while the rest were noting the modest results of the party in an excel spreadsheet. In the courtyard, we met Omar Hayani, the candidate of the party in Agdal province in Rabat.

Hayani stated in a calm voice “what matters for me is that our party has accomplished a clean campaign with full respect of health measures”, he continued, “I prefer to lose the election than to kill someone,” referring to the violation of health measures during the campaign by many political parties.

The announcement of the official results

Before 3 am, the Interior Minister announced the lead of the National Rally of Independents in the country with 97 seats in parliament, followed by the Authenticity and Modernity Party with 82 MPs in parliament and the Istiqlal party with 78 seats. PJD, which had high hopes to repeat history for the third time in a row, was the big loser in this election with only 12 seats in Parliament amidst unprecedented low voter turnover.

After the elections, King Mohammed VI appoints a prime minister from the party that obtains the largest bloc in Parliament, to form a new government for five years, according to the 2011 constitution.

The National Rally of Independents is a Moroccan political party, founded in 1978 by Prime Minister Ahmed Osman, brother-in-law of King Hassan II.

The party has a history of cooperating with two other parties with a liberal orientation, the Popular Movement and the Constitutional Union, since 1993.
The party won 52 out of 325 seats in the November 2011 parliamentary election, becoming the third-largest party in the parliament.

In 2016, the RNI clung to conditions that were rejected by then Prime Minister-designate Abdelilah Benkirane (former Secretary-General of Justice and Development), in a crisis that lasted for 6 months and ended with the dismissal of the latter and the assignment of the second man in the party, Saad Eddine El Othmani, to form the government, meeting Akhannouch’s conditions.

Today, Thursday, the national political scene is still blurry, cooperation between the winners of the political parties is still unknown as they started celebrating their achievements.

For the defeated one, PJD, the party’s member and the former head of the government, Benkiran, in his new favorite style of communication, handwritten notes posted on Facebook, asked his colleague Othmani, to resign from the leadership of the party as he should assume the responsibility of “the unfortunate loss of the party.”