HIBAPRESS – Rabat
The political interpretation of the results of the legislative elections of September 23 necessitates distinguishing between the decline of the National Rally of Independents (RNI) from the top of the rankings and what is commonly known as "punitive voting" against the government and the majority.
If voters had punished the government of Aziz Akhannouch and the majority parties that bore responsibility for managing public affairs over the past five years, it would have been logical for the opposition parties to lead the scene and the next phase. However, what the ballot boxes revealed is the continuation of the same trio, with a modification in the first and second positions: Authenticity and Modernity (PAM) with 97 seats, the National Rally of Independents (RNI) with 66 seats, and the Independence Party with 65 seats.
In other words, the parties that bore the responsibility of the government did not fall outside the circle of electoral trust, but rather maintained the first three positions, while the RNI moved from the lead to the second place. This result, in itself, is inconsistent with the hypothesis of punitive voting in its direct political sense, because punitive voting usually assumes that voters would push the opposition party or parties to the forefront of the scene, allowing them to lead the new government.
And while the National Rally of Independents lost 31 seats compared to the previous elections, the striking fact is that a number of figures who were considered part of the party chose, at the last moment, to contest the elections under the banner of PAM, while a number of these were originally elected in the name of the RNI.
This opens the door for a different interpretation of the result: part of the decline was not necessarily a result of voters moving from the party to its opponents, but rather a result of intense party hopping before the election, coinciding with what can be described as a symbolic liquidation of the RNI and its symbols, with the aim of hindering its re-emergence at the forefront of the political scene in the Kingdom.
Most telling is that the RNI ministers who ran in these elections managed to win their parliamentary seats, such as Lahcen Saadi in Taroudant, Mustapha Baitas in Sidi Ifni, and Ahmed Bouari in Ouazzane, in addition to Zakia Drouich, who won within the regional list in Agadir.
Accordingly, it seems difficult to reduce the outcome of September 23 to a single narrative titled "Popular Punishment," especially since the results of the party's prominent candidates do not reflect a complete rejection of the party or its symbols, but rather open the discussion about the factors that contributed to curbing part of its electoral strength.
