Islamist Party Set Back in Morocco Vote By ANGELA CHARLTON - 4 hours ago RABAT, Morocco (AP) - Voters in Morocco deprived an Islamist party of an expected parliamentary victory, handing it instead to a secular conservative party that is a member of the ruling coalition, according to preliminary results announced Saturday.
If confirmed, the results of Friday's vote would mean continuity for this important U.S. ally in the Arab world. In a surprisingly strong showing, the conservative and secular Istiqlal party won 52 of the 325 seats in the lower house of parliament, Interior Minister Chakib Benmussa said. The Islam-inspired Justice and Development Party or PJD, whose growing strength in recent years had worried its secular rivals, had 47 seats. But that was far short of the 80 seats the party had hoped for. Final authority rests with King Mohamed VI, who will name a prime minister based on the election results. The prime minister will then name a government, likely to be an awkward coalition that would include the PJD for the first time. Istiqlal bolstered its parliamentary representation by four seats, while the PJD gained five seats. The PJD has garnered strength in recent years by tapping disillusionment with a government seen as increasingly distant from voters' needs, focusing on the poor and jobless youth. Nearly 5 million of Morocco's 33 million people live on less than $2 a day, according to the World Bank. Unemployment, corruption and poverty were voters' top concerns, not religion. Yet the vote raised broader questions about the growing strength of political Islam in Morocco and beyond. The PJD accused the ruling secular parties of buying votes and appealing to voters with hasty public works projects to thwart its predicted victory. "It is sickening," Lahcen Daoudi, the PJD's No. 2 official, told reporters at party headquarters in Rabat. "The PJD has won, but Morocco has lost." The interior minister insisted the vote was "transparent." He acknowledged several irregularities, including people voting twice in different districts, but said such incidents were limited. Morocco is a moderate Muslim nation known for its relaxed resorts where many women shun the veil and bars are common. But the North African kingdom has also spawned Islamic terrorists - including those who staged the 2004 Madrid bombings and suicide attacks in Casablanca in 2003 and earlier this year. That violence has prompted a government crackdown that threatens the king's democratic reputation. The PJD has distanced itself from extremism, and from some members' calls for applying Islamic law. Morocco's largest Islamic movement - Justice and Charity or Adl wal Ihsan, which openly advocates Islamic government - is banned from politics. The election was marred by a record-low turnout of 37 percent. That was an embarrassment for the government and the lowest in the country's young democratic history. "It's disappointing, but not surprising. There were no grand debates, no serious engagement with the voters to explain to them the stakes of this election," said 26-year-old Moufidi Mohssen, a business student in Casablanca. The center-left Socialist Union of Popular Forces or USFP, which won the last elections in 2002 and ruled together with Istiqlal, dropped to fifth place with 36 seats. The centrist Popular Movement and RNI parties were in third and fourth, with 43 and 38 seats. A total of 23 parties and five independents will serve in the new parliament, according to the results. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Conservatives win Morocco polls By Zakia Abdennebi RABAT (Reuters) - Morocco's conservative Istiqlal party, part of a ruling coalition, won most seats in assembly polls according to results issued on Saturday, but opposition Islamists said they had been robbed of victory by vote buying. Provisional tallies showed Istiqlal (Independence), a nationalist stalwart of the north African kingdom's independence struggle from France, won 52 seats ahead of the Islamist Justice and Development party (PJD) with 47 seats. A complex voting system makes it almost impossible for any group to win a majority, and whatever the outcome, real power in the country of 33 million will remain with King Mohammed, who is executive head of state, military chief and religious leader. The moderate Islamists of the PJD had been tipped to do well despite a record low turnout and had aimed to become the biggest party in the 325-strong assembly, which has limited powers. But they scaled back their hopes when the results were published. Final results will be issued on Sunday. "Money was our first enemy," PJD leader Saad Eddine Othmani said. "We think that the PJD is the (real) winner." Interior Minister Chakib Benmoussa dismissed the claim but said the government would examine any evidence. "We took every measure to prevent such flaws and protect the election process from any illegal influence. We are ready to look at any complaint backed by evidence," he said. The parliamentary polls were the second since King Mohammed came to the throne in 1999 and saw 33 parties vie with dozens of independents. The elections were orderly and professional but marked by isolated irregularities, a multinational team of observers deployed by the U.S.-based National Democratic Institute for International Affairs said in a statement. Friday's vote was characterized by "strict transparency and professionalism" but the low turnout showed the need for further work to entrench representative democracy, it added. The provisional figures showed a record-low turnout of 37 percent, an apparent snub to a political system whose leaders are widely seen as aloof and out of touch. The results looked bad for the Socialist Union of Popular Forces (USFP) party, Istiqlal's main coalition partner, which dropped from first to fifth place in parliament. It had hoped voters would reward it for its part in the government's cautious social and economic reforms. UNREST Washington is looking hopefully to the polls for evidence its campaign for democracy in the Middle East and Africa is helping undermine support for Islamic militancy. Morocco has seen less of the kind of unrest that besets neighbouring Algeria, where a car bomb on Saturday killed 37 people. Algeria's violence broke out in 1992 when military-backed authorities scrapped parliamentary elections than an Islamist party was set to win. Many voters appeared more worried about corruption and poverty than religion. The liberal conservative Popular Movement (MP) and the National Rally of Independents (RNI) won 43 and 38 seats respectively, while the USFP won 36. Most of the other seats after Friday's vote were divided between many smaller parties and dozens of independents including former deputy interior minister Fouad Ali el Himma, who stepped down from his job last month to run for parliament. (Additional reporting by Lamine Ghanmi and Tom Pfeiffer)
