RABAT, Oct 8 (NNN-AGENCIES) — Morocco’s King Mohammed VI named a new government on Thursday after last month’s election, keeping the foreign and interior ministers in place but appointing Nadia Fettah Alaoui as finance minister, the state news agency reported.
In a monarchy where the king has final say on all major decisions, the new government’s main task will be to implement a development model that the palace has commissioned aimed at reducing inequality, cutting poverty and fostering growth.
The new government will be led by billionaire tycoon Aziz Akhannouch whose liberal National Rally of Independents (RNI) came first in the election, trouncing the incumbent conservative Justice and Development Party (PJD) in elections last month.
The RNI party formed a coalition with the liberal Authenticity and Modernity Party (PAM) and the conservative Istiqlal (Independence) parties.
The three parties command a comfortable majority in the parliament, with a combined 270 seats compared with the 198 needed to pass legislation.
The new finance minister, Alaoui, who was tourism minister in the previous government, will be one of seven women in the cabinet, including the former mayor of Marrakesh, Fatima Ezzahra El Mansouri.
The head of PAM, Abdellatif Ouahbi, was appointed justice minister and Istiqlal party leader Nizar Baraka took the portfolio covering equipment and water.
The PJD, which had been the largest after the previous two elections and whose leaders have served as prime ministers since 2011, crashed to a heavy defeat and said it would join the opposition together with left-wing parties. — NNN-AGENCIES
