Tangier’s public prosecutor’s office announced Saturday that five suspects have been taken into custody in connection with a bag of ballot papers found in the city, an incident tied directly to Morocco’s September 23 legislative elections.
According to a statement from the prosecutor’s office at the Tangier Court of Appeal, the detainees include two polling station chairpersons, their two respective deputies, and a fifth individual implicated in the same case. Four of the five were brought before prosecutors on Saturday, while investigators continue building their case against the fifth suspect, who remains in custody.
Investigators say the person originally caught holding the bag was serving as a deputy chairperson at one of the polling stations. He is accused of removing a batch of ballots from inside the voting room, allegedly with the help of the station’s chairperson, before carrying them off the premises in a bag taken from the school that had hosted the vote. The group is then said to have coordinated an attempt to quietly return the documents to the polling stations they came from.
Forensic examiners flagged a detail that has reinforced suspicions of tampering: the ink found on the seized ballots does not match the ink officially used at the polling stations in question, according to the prosecutor’s office.
Authorities say the case is being pursued on multiple legal grounds, including violations of electoral procedure, forgery, and complicity. The prosecutor’s office described its approach as rigorous and fully in line with the law, underscoring the seriousness with which Moroccan judicial authorities are treating any threat to the integrity of the vote.
The arrests come just days after the September 23 elections, a vote whose results have significantly reshaped Morocco’s political landscape. The episode is a reminder that judicial oversight of elections does not end when polls close: authorities continue monitoring for irregularities in the weeks that follow, a safeguard meant to protect the credibility of official results and deter any attempt, however isolated, to manipulate the democratic process.
