Morocco: Fatima Ezzahra El Mansouri is set to become the Kingdom’s first female prime minister

NAIROBI – The King of Morocco, Mohammed VI, has appointed Fatima Ezzahra El Mansouri, aged 50, as Prime Minister. She is the mayor of Marrakesh and was Minister for National Planning and Urban Development in the outgoing government in Rabat. She is the first woman to hold this post in the history of the North African kingdom and will be tasked with the dual role of forming and leading the government following the parliamentary elections on 23 September. Since 2024, El Mansouri has led the Parti d’Authenticité et de Modernité (PAM), the centrist, pro-monarchy party that won the elections with 97 seats and will need to form a coalition to secure the 198 seats required for a majority in the Lower House in Rabat. The expectation is that the alliance already in power since 2021 will be restructured, with the PAM itself joined by the conservative liberals of the Rassemblement National des Indépendants (RNI) (down from 102 to 66 seats) and the conservatives of the Istiqlal Party (down from 81 to 65 seats).

El Mansouri, a lawyer who studied at university in France, will succeed RNI-appointed Prime Minister Aziz Akhannouch and has ousted the pre-election favourite in the race for the top job: Fouzi Lekjaa, head of the Moroccan Football Federation and a key figure in the organisation of the 2030 FIFA World Cup, which Morocco is co-hosting with Spain and Portugal. Morocco, with a population of less than 40 million, is approaching the end of the decade against a backdrop poised between announcements of billion-dollar investments in the event, robust growth and the internal fragilities of a country crippled by an estimated 37 per cent unemployment rate, inadequate wages and domestic tensions. The frustration of the younger generations culminated in the Gen Z protests of 2025 and was reflected in the Ceuta crisis, with the exodus of tens of thousands of people fleeing across the border to the Spanish exclave. The parliamentary elections of 23 September themselves were marked by record-low turnout and a resurgence of the moderate Islamists of the Justice and Development Party – two further indications of disaffection with the political class and the urgent need for a radical change at the top.

El Mansouri’s appointment ‘certainly has a strong symbolic impact; it sends a message of change and renewal’, explains Riccardo Fabiani of the International Crisis Group. In Morocco, the executive’s powers are limited compared with those of the monarch and his entourage, but the government led by El Mansouri will nevertheless have to tackle the legacy of the past five years and provide solutions to pressing issues such as access to public services, wages, inflation and the disconnect between record macroeconomic growth and the discontent of younger generations. ‘It is an appointment that seeks to address all of this,’ says Fabiani, ‘without, however, changing the overall picture.’