Benkirane vies for 2nd term

Moroccan Prime Minister Abdelilah Benkirane Rabat - Rachid Bougha On Wednesday, a leader from Morocco's ruling Justice and Development Party (PJD) said: “It’s almost sure that Prime Minister Abdelilah Benkirane will attend the opening session of the seventh National Conference next Saturday and Sunday, in Rabat, as candidate to a second term as Party Chairman, and that’s by the virtue of his position in the government, and a symbol of the Moroccan experience in the Arab Spring having succeeded to lead the Party safely to government leadership.”  In a media statement, the official said: “If Benkirane gets more than 60 percent of voted in the first round, that would be a positive sign. If not, it would be a bad indicator for him..although he managed to win in the sixth conference with support that did not exceed 50 percent.”  Meanwhile, the preparatory committee of conference, which is to be held in Rabat on July 14 -15, held a meeting to present the conference details. In the meeting, Abdullah Baja, the Minister of State and chairman of the committee said the party's aims had shifted from democratic struggle to democratic construction and reform, and that what was imposed by the change in the PJD’s position from opposition to leading the current government. Baja, who leads the Al-Misbah Party, said: "Around 3300 will participate in the seventh national conferenc in comparison to 1630 in the previous one. Also, the representation of women in the seventh conference increased by 17 percent, 550 participants from what was about 15 percent in the sixth. The total cost of the conference  will be about 5,021,766 dirhams, including food, accommodation, logistics and guests (8 Moroccan Dirhams = 1 USD).” The committee also reviewed the most important ammendments to the statute of the party. The secretariat, consisting of 40 members, will handle the political issues, while the managarial issues will be supervised by a public administration. Amendments included the creation of local and regional councils to facilitate decentralisation.  The amendments and modifications are to limit candidacy for electoral and party tasks to only working members, and not including backbenchers as it was in the past, as well as increasing the percentage of women's representation in the party to 25 percent as required in the article 26 of the political parties law.  The amendments also aim to raise the number of the elected members to 160 instead of only 100, limiting the responsibilities of the secretariat to political issues and creating a new framework called "public administration" which should work under the supervision of the secretariat which will handle organisational and administrative functions.  Yemeni political activist Tawakul Karman, winner of Noble Peace Price will attend the opening session of the seventh national conference where she will give a speech. Other guests include officials from Turkey, Egypt, Tunisia, Somalia, Mauritania, Qatar, Lebanon, Palestine, Malaysia, Sudan, Belgium, France and other countries, in addition to representatives of Moroccan parties, unions, human rights organisations, and figures from sports, politics and art. For the first time in Moroccan Parties’ history, access to the Conference Hall and voting will be done through e-cards.