Abdelilah Benkirane rarely minces his words, and Sunday’s party gathering in Nouaceur was no exception. Addressing supporters of Morocco’s Justice and Development Party (PJD), the group’s secretary-general turned his fire on a familiar target: former prime minister Saad Eddine El Othmani, whom he bluntly told to « stay home » and stop stirring confusion within party ranks.
The remarks, delivered in front of local militants, were unusually pointed even by the standards of a party accustomed to internal sparring. Benkirane accused his predecessor at the head of government of speaking out of turn on issues the party leadership considers settled, suggesting El Othmani would be better off returning to his original profession as a psychiatrist than continuing to « blur the picture » for ordinary members.
Behind the jab lies an unresolved wound: the December 2020 tripartite declaration that restored diplomatic ties between Morocco and Israel, signed while El Othmani headed the government. The move was controversial from the outset inside a party long associated with pro-Palestinian activism, and Benkirane made clear the episode still haunts the PJD’s image. Rivals, he said, « never stop mocking us » over that signature, a line clearly aimed at reviving the debate over who bears responsibility for the normalization deal.
The exchange is the latest sign of a rift that has run through the PJD since its crushing defeat in the 2021 legislative elections, which ended a decade in power. The current leadership has tried, with mixed success, to distance itself from some of the choices made during that tenure, while former officials like El Othmani continue to defend their record. Normalization with Israel remains one of the most divisive legacies of those years, splitting both grassroots members and senior figures who once governed side by side.
El Othmani had not publicly responded to Benkirane’s comments at the time of writing. But the episode reopens, ahead of a politically sensitive period for Morocco’s Islamist movement, questions about whether the PJD can project unity when its own leadership keeps airing internal grievances in public.
