Fatima Zahra Mansouri wasted no time. Barely days after King Mohammed VI entrusted her with forming Morocco’s next government, the country’s new head of government picked up the phone on Tuesday evening and dialed Abdelilah Benkirane, secretary-general of the Justice and Development Party (PJD). Her message was simple: she wanted to meet, as part of the consultations now under way to shape the incoming cabinet.
According to a statement circulated by the Islamist party, Benkirane welcomed the gesture and left it to Mansouri to set a date that worked for both sides. The exchange, brief as it was, signals something worth noting: even with the PJD firmly outside the coalition math, the lines of communication between Morocco’s political families remain open.
That distance is no accident. In the wake of last week’s legislative elections, the PJD’s national council settled on an opposition role, a stance its leadership has repeated at every turn since. Benkirane had already spelled out his reasoning in a post-election statement, describing the shift as the closing of a chapter defined by cross-party problem-solving and direct involvement in public affairs. He was careful, though, to draw a clear line: choosing opposition, he said, was never meant as a challenge to the state or to the monarchy itself.
Tuesday’s phone call fits into a broader pattern taking shape as Mansouri assembles her team. Tasked by the King with building the next executive, she has been reaching out methodically to parties across the political spectrum, not just the ones likely to join her coalition. Reaching out to a party that has already ruled out a role in government is, in that sense, a deliberate signal: consultations, in this transition, are meant to include everyone with a seat in parliament, not only prospective partners.
Whether the eventual meeting produces anything beyond a courtesy exchange remains to be seen. With the PJD’s position on cabinet participation already settled, the encounter is likely to serve a narrower purpose: mapping out how a structured opposition will operate in the new legislature, without turning into open confrontation with the institutions it has chosen not to join.
