Moroccans start voting
2007-09-07 18:52
Rabat - Voting got off to a slow start in Morocco on Friday in elections expected to result in gains for the main opposition Islamist party and throw up a new challenge for the reforming King Mohammed VI.
About 1.5 million voters, or nearly 10%, had cast their ballots by 12:00 GMT, four hours after polls opened, the north African country's interior minister said.
The Justice and Development Party (PJD), which has vowed to take on corruption, could become the largest single party after the election, although nobody expects the king to choose a prime minister from its ranks.
Since taking over from his father in 1999, Mohammed VI has sought to modernise Morocco.
Thirty-three parties are competing in Friday's elections, but the electoral system allows none of them to get a ruling majority. No mainstream party wants to link up with the PJD.
But PJD secretary general Saad Eddine Othmani still predicts his party will win at least one million of the 15.5 million eligible votes and at least 70 seats in the 325-deputy chamber.
Polls were scheduled to close at 19:00 GMT, with a definitive result due on Sunday. International observers, scrutinising a Moroccan election for the first time, were due to report their preliminary findings on Saturday.
The competing parties mostly fall under three main headings: the left and centre-right parties that are part of the current governing coalition; Islamist formations, including the PJD, which is currently the main opposition; and leftist groups that are part of an alliance.
One of the main concerns for the king and all those competing in the elections is the fear of a low voter turn-out, which has dropped from 67% in 1984 polls to 52% in 2002.
"A strong turnout would give legitimacy to the poll and all of the policies carried out by the authorities since 2002," said Mohamed Darif, a professor of political science at Mohammedia University. "These are the real stakes."
The PJD won 42 seats in 2002 but was kept out of the five-party governing coalition led by Driss Jettou, then a non-politician appointed by the king.
It includes the Union of Socialist Popular Forces (USFP), which is seen as the individual party most likely to challenge the PJD for the highest number of seats, and the nationalist Istiqlal party.
Ahead of Friday's poll, PJD chief Othmani took pains to reassure Morocco's foreign allies by telling the French weekly magazine Pelerin: "I'm a Muslim Democrat just as others in Europe are Christian Democrats."
"Modernity is not contradictory with a Muslim identity," he said.
"We're not fundamentalists. We play a role against extremists since we give a hope to the most deprived people who no longer have confidence in political institutions and parties."
The outgoing government has highlighted its record of embarking on major infrastructure works, boosting public housing, reforming family law and paying compensation to victims of human rights abuses between 1960 and 1999.