RABAT (MOROCCO) (ITALPRESS) – King Mohammed VI of Morocco has appointed Fatima Ezzahra El Mansouri—coordinator of the collective leadership of the Authenticity and Modernity Party—to head the government. King Mohammed received the politician today at the Royal Palace in Rabat. The monarch also tasked El Mansouri with forming the new executive, according to the Moroccan news agency MAP.
Since the beginning of his reign, King Mohammed VI’s actions regarding Moroccan women have followed a consistent and progressive path: from the recognition of rights to their actual implementation, and from economic and social empowerment to women’s full participation in public life. A key milestone was the 2004 reform of the Moudawana (Family Code), followed by the 2011 Constitution, Article 19 of which enshrines the principle of equality between women and men.
In parallel, the National Initiative for Human Development, launched in 2005, has fostered women’s economic autonomy through training, workforce integration programs, and income-generating activities.
This evolution has also been reflected in state institutions: the number of female MPs rose from just two in 1993 to 96 in 2021—nearly a quarter of the House of Representatives. Women’s access to the highest levels of state responsibility has also been encouraged since 2000, starting with the appointment of Zoulikha Nasri as an Advisor to His Majesty—the first woman in Morocco’s history to hold such a position. A woman’s accession to the head of government for the first time represents, therefore, not a rupture, but the result of the progressive maturation of Moroccan society and institutions.
Today’s milestone transcends national borders and holds symbolic significance across the African, Arab, and Mediterranean spheres. Yet, according to domestic observers, this symbolic moment now ushers in a time for action: it is through the capacity to govern, reform, unite, and meet citizens’ expectations that this achievement will find its fullest meaning. Furthermore, the real challenge will be to ensure that what stands today as a historic “first” becomes, in the future, a standard institutional norm.
Fatima Ezzahra El Mansouri was born on January 3, 1976, in Marrakech. A lawyer by training, she holds a degree in private law from Mohammed V University in Rabat, a Diplôme d’études approfondies (DEA) in business contract law from the University of Montpellier in France, and a certificate in Anglo-American law from Pace University in the United States. Specializing in land and real estate law, she has been a member of the Marrakech Bar Association since 2005. She began her political career in 2007 with the Movement of All Democrats and was a founding member of the Authenticity and Modernity Party (PAM) in 2008. In 2009, she was elected President of the Marrakech City Council, a position she held until 2015 and assumed again in 2021. She also served as a member of the House of Representatives from 2011 to 2021. From 2015 to 2024, she chaired the PAM National Council, and since 2024, she has served as coordinator of the party’s collective leadership. On October 7, 2021, King Mohammed VI appointed her Minister of National Land Use Planning, Urban Planning, Housing, and City Policy.
– Photo Ipa Agency –
(ITALPRESS).
