Arabic version: تعيين المنصوري أول رئيسة حكومة في المغرب

According to BBC News, Fatima Zahra El Mansouri has been named Morocco’s first female prime minister after her centrist Authenticity and Modernity Party (Pam) won the most seats in last week’s parliamentary elections.

King Mohammed VI selected El Mansouri, 50, over the country’s football chief Fouzi Lekjaa, a leading politician from the same party. Her appointment makes her the second woman to lead a government in the Arab world, after Tunisia’s Najla Bouden. Morocco is a constitutional monarchy, although most power remains with the king.

A lawyer by training, El Mansouri studied at Mohammed V University in Rabat before further education in France and the US, specialising in business and corporate law. She entered politics after Pam was founded in 2008, became Marrakesh’s first female mayor in 2009 and returned to the role after the 2021 elections. She also served as a minister in the previous coalition government.

Pam won 97 seats, leaving it short of the 198 required for an absolute majority in the 395-member parliament. El Mansouri must now negotiate a governing coalition. It is unclear which party Pam will work with after its dispute with the National Rally of Independents, which led the outgoing government. The Islamist Justice and Development Party, which won 54 seats, has said it will remain in opposition.