Morocco announced a new cabinet on Oct. 16, led by the country’s first female prime minister, Fatima Ezzahra El Mansouri, at the head of a four-party coalition, reports Anadolu.
State-run Maghreb Arabe Presse (MAP) reported that King Mohammed VI received the members of the new cabinet and presided over their appointment ceremony at the Royal Palace in Rabat. El Mansouri is the first woman to hold the country’s top government post.
El Mansouri’s Authenticity and Modernity Party (PAM) leads the coalition alongside the Istiqlal Party, the Socialist Union of Popular Forces and the Party of Progress and Socialism.
The government has 32 members, including ministers and ministers-delegate, according to official figures. Seven are women, El Mansouri included, up from six in the previous government led by Aziz Akhannouch.Several senior ministers kept their posts.They include AbdelouafiLaftit as interior minister, Nasser Bourita as foreign minister, AbdellatifOuahbi as justice minister and Ahmed Toufiq as minister of Islamic affairs and endowments. The cabinet also created a new Ministry of Artificial Intelligence, Digital Transformation and Administrative Reform, headed by Ahmed Rahhou.
The four parties announced that they had formed the governing majority, after the second round of consultations on forming a government, which began on Sep. 30, concluded.King Mohammed VI had tasked El Mansouri with forming a government on Sep. 29.