Morocco Election Shaped by Football, Israel, Ceuta — SkimNews
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- Morocco held parliamentary elections Wednesday for 395 House of Representatives seats, weeks after roughly 60,000 migrants crossed to the Spanish enclave of Ceuta in the largest such surge in recent history, with at least 100 deaths.
- Fouzi Lekjaa, head of the Royal Moroccan Football Federation, joined the centrist Party of Authenticity and Modernity (PAM) in July, and his campaign rallies went viral with the "Sir" chant from Morocco's landmark 2022 World Cup semi-final run.
- The Justice and Development Party (PJD), led by former PM Abdelilah Benkirane, is campaigning on ending ties with Israel; earlier this month, Israel and Morocco announced plans to open full embassies despite the Gaza war and weekly protests in Rabat.
- PM Aziz Akhannouch's National Rally of Independents is pledging one million jobs by 2031, but MIPA analyst Rachid Aourraz called the slogan "overused" and said Morocco cannot structurally create stable net jobs.
- Youth unemployment in Morocco stood at 37.3% for ages 15-24 with overall unemployment at 13%, per the IMF, fueling September 2025 Gen Z protests in which more than 2,400 people faced prosecution.
- King Mohammed VI appoints the prime minister from the winning party but presides over the Council of Ministers, meaning parties compete over implementing royal policy rather than offering alternative models, per Aourraz.
- Only 4% of Morocco's 15.8 million registered voters are aged 18-24, even though more than half of the country's 38.8 million people are under 35.
Why it matters: With the king holding executive power and parties competing only over how to implement his agenda, the election offers voters limited agency — a tension sharpened by 37.3% youth unemployment, a Ceuta migration wave of 60,000, and a Gen Z movement that drew 2,400+ prosecutions in September 2025. Whoever forms the next government inherits pressure on jobs, ties with Israel that the public opposed during the Gaza war, and a young majority that remains largely absent from the ballot.
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