Moroccan Expats Push for Expanded Voting Rights and Political Representation

The body stresses the need to respond to the needs of all groups in society, including MREs, stating that it "positively appreciates" certain measures that have been taken to strengthen especially the right to vote and to run for elections.

This involves their registration on the general electoral lists, in order to participate in referendums, to stand and to vote in the constituencies defined in the national territory. This is "one of the surest bets for true citizenship," assures the coordination, whose communiqué denounces "severe exclusion of Moroccans of the world," which constitutes "a strange contrast between the reference bases and the laws and the existing reality".

Following several meetings with the secretaries general of Moroccan parties, the CCME and the CNDH, the coordination stresses that Moroccans abroad want to be represented in the next Parliament, in accordance with the requirements of Article 17 of the Constitution".

In short, two flagship proposals are presented so far: a national list of MREs, similar to the lists of women and youth and regional lists, opening "the way to the first experience within the framework of the 2011 constitution".