Who is Fatima Ezzahra El Mansouri, Morocco’s first female prime minister?

King Mohammed VI appointed El Mansouri on Tuesday and asked her to form a government after her Authenticity and Modernity Party (PAM) came first in last week's parliamentary election, winning 97 of the 395 seats.

“This is a truly historic moment,” El Mansouri told the media after her meeting with the king. “For the first time in the history of our country, a woman is taking responsibility for leading the government. It is a source of pride not only for me but for all Moroccan women.”

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'There from the start'

El Mansouri, who is trilingual, studied law in the United States and at France's University of Montpellier.

She joined PAM in 2008, when Fouad Ali El Himma, now an adviser to the king, founded the party – which has positioned itself as a counterweight to the Islamist Justice and Development Party (PJD).

“She has been there from the start,” said Abdellah Tourabi, a Moroccan journalist and analyst. “She is part of the party's original core.”

El Mansouri's first major political breakthrough came in 2009, when at the age of 33 she became the first female mayor of Marrakesh.

Educated in French schools, she had a "poor command of Arabic" when she entered politics, a source close to her family told Moroccan news website Le Desk.

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Setback to comeback

After losing the mayor's office to the PJD in 2015, El Mansouri returned as mayor in 2021.

Her rise continued when she became a minister in outgoing prime minister Aziz Akhannouch's government. She was also elected to parliament in last week's vote.

Her parliamentary seat will pass to the next candidate on her list, while she will remain mayor of Marrakesh until municipal elections scheduled for 2027.

The election propelled PAM from the second-largest party in the outgoing coalition to first place, putting El Mansouri in line to lead the government.

Without enough seats to govern alone, PAM must now find coalition partners – and there would be no “red lines” in these negotiations, El Mansouri said.

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Pressure from young Moroccans

El Mansouri takes office after an election in which turnout fell to 38 percent from 50 percent five years ago.

Deadly protests led by young Moroccans last year and a mass border rush on the Spanish enclave of Ceuta in July brought youth discontent to the fore.

In September 2025, El Mansouri, then PAM's national coordinator, acknowledged that public policy had fallen short of young people's expectations.

“If we had succeeded, we would not now be hearing these voices in the streets and on social media, and this anger would not exist,” she said. “So we did not succeed.”

PAM campaigned on a platform of promises to create at least a million jobs during its term, achieve average annual economic growth of 5 percent and keep inflation at 2 percent.

“We are fully aware that this period will be important and marked by high expectations from Moroccans, especially young people,” El Mansouri said after her appointment.

(with newswires)