Morocco's Authenticity and Modernity Party (PAM) won the most seats in parliamentary elections — 97 of 395 in the House of Representatives — according to final results from the Ministry of Interior on Friday. The result hands PAM the constitutional right to form a government: King Mohammed VI must appoint a prime minister from the winning party. But 97 is barely a quarter of the chamber, and the path to 198 seats requires stitching together a coalition with parties whose interests do not naturally align. The most striking number is not who won but who didn't show up. Turnout hit 38 percent of 15.8 million registered voters — the second-lowest since Mohammed VI took the throne in 1999, and a sharp decline from the roughly 51 percent recorded in 2021. Analysts link the collapse to youth-led protests over jobs, healthcare, and education, and to the deadly mass attempts by migrants to reach Spain's Ceuta enclave in July. A parliament elected by barely a third of eligible voters governs with structural legitimacy questions baked in. PAM's likely coalition partner is the monarchist Istiqlal party, which came third. The National Rally of Independents (RNI), PAM's senior partner in the outgoing government, cratered from 102 seats to 66 — a loss of more than a third of its caucus. That collapse reshuffles coalition arithmetic and weakens one of PAM's natural allies at the table. The most dramatic subplot belongs to the Justice and Development Party (PJD), the moderate Islamist party that led the government for a decade before its parliamentary representation collapsed to 13 seats in 2021. This time PJD quadrupled to 54 seats — a striking rehabilitation, though still far from governing range. The party has declared it will remain in opposition, and a longstanding rivalry with PAM makes any PJD-PAM alliance functionally impossible. Two potential prime ministerial candidates have emerged from PAM's ranks: Fouzi Lekjaa, who heads Morocco's football federation and serves as budget minister, and Fatima Ezzahra Mansouri, mayor of Marrakech and minister of national planning, urban planning, housing, and urban policy. Mansouri would become Morocco's first female prime minister if chosen — a milestone that would carry significant symbolic weight in the region. The stakes for the incoming government extend well beyond domestic coalition management. Morocco is cohosting the 2030 FIFA World Cup with Spain and Portugal, a commitment that requires billions of dollars in infrastructure investment delivered on a fixed deadline. Whoever governs must simultaneously manage public frustration over the economy, deliver massive capital projects, and do so with a mandate from only 38 percent of registered voters. The structural pattern is familiar across North Africa and the broader MENA region: elections that produce fragmented parliaments, low turnout that signals citizen disengagement rather than satisfaction, and real executive power remaining with the monarchy. The question is not whether PAM forms a government — it will — but whether a coalition built on thin popular legitimacy can execute at the scale the World Cup demands while addressing the grievances that kept nearly two-thirds of voters home.
