Morocco Election Scandal: Local Officials Accused of Vote Buying Ahead of October Vote

At the end of their term after their election in September 2021, some corrupt commune presidents have started to buy the votes of elected officials to run again in the session scheduled for October. According to Assabah, some councilors are waiting for this deadline to replace the presidents of municipal councils "who have not pampered them financially or who have not met their personal demands".

Over the past three years, some candidates have "kidnapped dozens of councilors whom they have taken to unknown destinations, in order to guarantee the majority [of votes likely to allow them to] win the presidency," the publication said, adding that the "kidnapped elected officials were closely monitored by bouncers, so that they could not return to the fold of the ousted president and sabotage the plan to overthrow him".

"A businessman from the Marrakech-Safi region has committed to financing the election campaign of an elected official in order to overthrow the current president, whom he accuses of having hindered his real estate projects," informs the daily, stressing that "tens of thousands of dirhams have been allocated by interest groups to support their protégés, as in one of the councils of the Fez-Meknes region, where an envelope of 150,000 dirhams has been reserved for each elected official".

To "put an end to these machinations, the leaderships of the majority parties have issued warnings to the elected officials [affiliated with them], summoning them to maintain the same majority, resulting from the 2021 elections, and not to ’overthrow’ the presidents, nor to ally with the opposition councilors," the daily indicates.