Amazigh Activists Enter Elections to Push for Language Recognition

Several members of the Amazigh Action Front will run in the upcoming local and regional elections scheduled for September 8, reports Hespress. In Tiznit, Bachir Ahdar of the Amazigh Action Front and Leila Dghrni, the niece of the late political activist Ahmed Dghrni, will represent the Constitutional Union (UC) and the Party of the Green Left (PGV) respectively in the upcoming municipal elections.

The Amazigh activist Youssef Ouzket and Hassan Zwawi are both candidates in the upcoming elections in Tinghir. The former is the proxy of the regional list of the Authenticity and Modernity Party (PAM), while the latter is the head of the list of the Party of Progress and Socialism (PPS). As for Hamid Nogho, he will this time run under the banner of the Democratic and Social Movement (MDS) instead of the Socialist Union of Popular Forces (USFP).

According to Bachir Ahdar, the members of the Amazigh movement who have chosen to participate this year justify this position by the absence of a democratic party with a purely Amazigh ideology. "Current practices should not prevent Amazigh activists from getting involved in political action, in the sense that by running in elections under certain party colors does not mean that the candidates find what they want in these parties, but rather a way to act in the world of politics, because change must come from within the institutions," he added.

"The participation of Amazigh activists in the upcoming electoral deadlines is a commendable initiative, as it is in line with our slogans calling for political participation despite all the constraints," estimates Mohieddine Hajjaj, coordinator of the Amazigh Action Front. However, many of them "are confronted with certain internal partisan practices," he noted.