Morocco Cracks Down on Absentee Local Officials, Tracking Attendance

The Ministry of the Interior has decided to crack down on repeated absences of municipal elected officials. It is with this in mind that the General Directorate of Territorial Communities has asked commune presidents, under the supervision of walis and governors, to draw up attendance lists and record absences during ordinary and extraordinary council sessions, reports Hespress.

Since the September 2021 elections, several elected officials have been conspicuously absent during sessions, according to some reports, which also reveal the complicity of certain commune, region, or prefecture presidents who refrain from sanctioning these absentee officials in accordance with organic law 113.14 relating to communes. According to this text, attendance at sessions is mandatory, and any elected official whose absence without valid reason is established for three consecutive sessions or five discontinuous sessions is dismissed.

These absences of elected officials are particularly recorded in the provinces of Nouaceur, Berrechid, and Mediouna (Casablanca-Settat). They have prevented reaching a quorum during certain ordinary sessions in February and May 2025. It is for these reasons that Abdelouafi Laftit’s department has instructed commune presidents to draw up a list of absent elected officials.

Opposition elected officials denounced during the last May sessions the fact that vice-presidents have been receiving monthly allowances for five years without participating in sessions or supervising the sectors they are in charge of. They also criticized commune presidents for their inaction in the face of these absences of elected officials, despite their calls to apply the texts in force and dismiss absentees.