MOROCCO NAMES FATIMA EL MANSOURI FIRST FEMALE PRIME MINISTER

King Mohammed VI has appointed Fatima Zahra El Mansouri as Morocco's prime minister, the first woman to hold the post. The royal cabinet said the king acted on Tuesday after her centrist Authenticity and Modernity Party (PAM) won the most seats in parliamentary elections on 23 September. He chose El Mansouri, the mayor of Marrakesh, over Fouzi Lekjaa, Morocco's football chief and a senior PAM figure. Her appointment makes her only the second woman to lead an Arab government, after Tunisia's Najla Bouden.

El Mansouri trained as a lawyer in Rabat before studying business and corporate law in France and the United States. She entered politics after PAM was founded in 2008 and became the first woman to serve as mayor of Marrakesh in 2009, losing the post in 2015 before regaining it in 2021. She also served as a housing minister under former prime minister Aziz Akhannouch and became co-ordinator of PAM's leadership coalition in 2024. PAM won 97 of the 395 seats in the House of Representatives, 31 more than its nearest rival, in a vote reported to have had the lowest turnout in two decades.

Without an outright majority, PAM must form a coalition for its five-year term, though the king retains broad powers. The incoming government is expected to face unemployment and rising living costs, alongside billions of dollars in investment linked to the 2030 World Cup, which Morocco is co-hosting with Spain and Portugal. "Young people are going through a crisis and we must provide them with answers," El Mansouri said during the campaign, pledging "concrete solutions." The election followed the crossing of tens of thousands of young Moroccans into the Spanish enclave of Ceuta.