Moroccan billionaire Aziz Akhannouch’s party secures majority of seats in legislative elections

Editorial Team -

The National Rally of Independents party (RNI) has secured the majority of seats in the recently concluded parliamentary elections in Morocco.

According to Morocco World News, the final turnout of the 2021 elections on Sept. 8 revealed that RNI, the Moroccan liberal* party led by Moroccan billionaire businessman Aziz Akhannouch, won the most seats in the lower house of parliament.

Meanwhile, the ruling Development Party (PJD) secured 12 seats, registering a decline of 113 seats compared to the 2016 elections when it registered 125 seats.

Interior Minister Abdelouafi Laftit, who announced the results, said the RNI topped the list with the highest number of seats secured in the House of Representatives, as the party took 102 seats of the total 395 seats in the lower house of parliament.

Akhannouch, president of RNI, considers the election results a victory for all Moroccans. He lauded the outcome, saying that it was “a victory for democracy, its spirit and its rules.”

His party promises to generate more than 1 million jobs for youth, expand the health sector, increase salaries and provide a guaranteed pension for the elderly.

Akhannouch, who is one of the wealthiest men in the country, is a prominent figure in the Moroccan political sphere.

From 2003 to 2007, he was the president of the Souss-Massa-Draa regional council, formerly one of 16 regions in Morocco from 1997 to 2015.

The Moroccan billionaire, who is the majority owner of Akwa Group, was appointed by the King of Morocco Mohammed VI in 2013 as the finance minister on an interim basis. He was later named agriculture minister.

Akhannouch rejoined the RNI after being elected president of the party in 2016.

He has a net worth of $2 billion, according to Forbes, making him one of the richest billionaires in Africa.

He derives the majority of his wealth from the Casablanca-based conglomerate, Akwa Group, a multibillion-dollar behemoth founded by his father and a partner, Ahmed Wakrim, in 1932.

In March 2020, through Afriquia, a subsidiary of Akwa Group, Akhannouch donated $103.5 million to the Coronavirus Pandemic Management Fund founded by King Mohammed VI.

Liberal*: Supporting policies that promote the social welfare of citizens and political ideas that are socially progressive.