Morocco’s pre-election jockeying took a sharp legal turn this weekend after a senior opposition figure declared that one of the ruling coalition’s most talked-about names is barred from running in the upcoming legislative vote. Idriss Lachker, first secretary of the Socialist Union of Popular Forces (USFP), told party officials in Rabat on Sunday that Fouzi Laqjae, a political bureau member of the Authenticity and Modernity Party (PAM), cannot legally stand as a candidate.
Speaking at a gathering with union representatives from his party, Lachker argued that Laqjae, despite holding a government post, remains formally registered as an inspector at the Ministry of Finance. That administrative status, he said, falls squarely under Article 7 of Morocco’s organic electoral law, which bars certain categories of civil servants, finance ministry inspectors among them, from seeking elected office.
« Laqjae is barred from running by force of law, » Lachker said bluntly, adding that Laqjae’s continued leadership of the National Association of Finance Ministry Inspectors amounts, in his view, to a clear breach of electoral regulations already on the books.
The accusation lands at a delicate moment. Laqjae’s name has increasingly been floated as a potential contender for the premiership, and competition among parties in the outgoing majority is heating up ahead of the legislative race. For Lachker, fielding a candidate whose eligibility is legally contestable amounts to an avoidable institutional and political risk, one he argues no party should be willing to take with public trust already fragile.
The USFP leader called for strict, uniform enforcement of electoral procedure, insisting the credibility of the coming vote hinges on it. Rules, he stressed, cannot bend for candidates simply because of their political weight or their standing inside the governing apparatus; either the law applies to everyone or it applies to no one.
Neither PAM nor Laqjae himself had publicly responded to the claims at the time of writing, though the exchange is likely to fuel further legal and political sparring in the weeks before campaigning officially opens. Beyond the personal dispute between the two figures, the episode reopens a broader and recurring debate in Morocco over incompatibilities between public administrative posts and elected mandates, a question that resurfaces almost every election cycle.
Electoral law specialists note that the organic law’s restrictions exist precisely to prevent conflicts of interest between the civil administration and political representation, a principle the USFP now appears determined to enforce to the letter as the countdown to the legislative elections continues.
