A central inspection team from Morocco’s Interior Ministry arrived Saturday morning at the headquarters of the Tangier-Tétouan-Al Hoceïma region, opening an administrative front in a case that has gripped the northern city since disputed ballots surfaced at one of its polling stations. The move adds a new layer to a criminal investigation that has already produced five arrests, less than a week after the September 23 legislative elections.
Investigators from the ministry began by questioning the district chief responsible for the polling station housed inside the Al-Qods school, along with several local security officials who were on duty during the vote. Their focus is on establishing accountability for how the site was managed and secured after an apparent surplus of ballots was found stuffed into the ballot boxes there.
Sources close to the case say the inspection could widen further, potentially reaching other officials who oversaw the vote, whether from provincial administration or school staff who hosted the polling station. That administrative review is running alongside a judicial investigation that has moved just as quickly.
The case took a sharp turn Friday with the arrest of a fifth suspect, an education official described as close to Tangier’s mayor. His name surfaced during the ongoing inquiry, prompting authorities to issue a search warrant against him.
On the judicial side, criminal police have begun holding confrontations between several detainees, while prosecutors have extended the pretrial detention of the main suspect to dig deeper into where the disputed ballots came from and who else may have been involved in bringing them into the polling station.
Tangier Mayor Mounir El Limoury has also been named in the investigation. According to the same sources, he served as campaign director and list representative for the Party of Authenticity and Modernity in the September 23 vote. He reportedly left Tangier for Spain by sea on the night of Wednesday into Thursday, before security services, unable to summon him for questioning, issued a search warrant against him. No charges have been filed against him at this stage.
While the ministry’s commission examines the administrative and organizational side of the affair, criminal police are continuing an investigation that has so far produced five arrests. Coming just days after the legislative vote, the case has reopened questions about how well ballot security held up in certain districts, and could weigh on Tangier’s political climate in the weeks ahead.
