Overview
- Provisional results from the Interior Ministry give the centrist Authenticity and Modernity Party (PAM) 97 of 395 seats while turnout was 38.02 percent, producing a 61.98 percent abstention rate that sources describe as the highest in 20 years.
- The results place the RNI second with 66 seats, Istiqlal around 65 seats and the Islamist PJD rebounding to 54 seats, creating a reconfigured parliament without an obvious single-party majority.
- Voting on Wednesday proceeded largely normally but authorities detained a person in Tangier for an alleged attempt to manipulate ballots and the public prosecutor is probing a viral video that appears to show a pre-filled ballot box.
- Low registration and youth disengagement underpinned the weak turnout: the electoral roll had 15.8 million inscritos while 18-to-24-year-olds made up only about 4 percent of registrants, and the seat allocation method rewards districts based on registered voters rather than valid votes, which increases fragmentation.
- Next steps to watch are official certification of results, the king’s formal appointment of a prime minister from the first-placed party, coalition bargaining in parliament, and how the new government addresses security at the Spanish enclaves and preparations for the 2030 World Cup.