Power is a brutal teacher. For a decade, Morocco’s Party of Justice and Development stood at the pinnacle of national politics, hailed as a rare success story of pragmatic political Islam operating within a constitutional monarchy. Then came September 2021. In a single electoral cycle, the party plummeted from 125 seats in the House of Representatives to a humiliating 13. Prime Minister Saad Eddine Othmani lost his own seat, and the party was unceremoniously shoved to the political margins.
If you want to understand how a dominant political machine implodes overnight, you have to look past simple campaign slogans. The collapse of the PJD offers a masterclass in the dangers of compromise, the friction of governance under a constrained system, and the speed at which disillusioned voters will abandon their champions. For another look, consider: this related article.
The Trap of Ruling Without Real Power
The core contradiction of the PJD's time in office was simple: they held the title of government, but they didn't hold the ultimate levers of state authority. Operating within Morocco’s political architecture, the party functioned as the public face of executive administration while major strategic decisions remained anchored in the royal palace.
This dynamic turned the party into a convenient buffer. When economic strains mounted or unpopular reforms passed, public anger landed squarely on the PJD. They took the blame for everything because they were the ones sitting in the parliamentary seats. Further insight regarding this has been shared by Reuters.
Governing forces you into messy compromises. To maintain an uneasy truce with the establishment and manage coalition politics, the PJD's leadership signed off on policies that directly alienated their core demographic.
Compromising the Base
Political parties survive on enthusiasm. When you break your promises, that enthusiasm evaporates. The PJD discovered this the hard way through a series of fateful policy choices made during its final years in power.
- Economic Strain: Pension reforms that raised the retirement age infuriated civil servants and labor unions who had previously viewed the party as an ally.
- Ideological Shifts: The signing of the Abraham Accords normalizing relations with Israel, alongside the legalization of medical cannabis, drove a wedge through the party's conservative foundation.
To secular critics, the party was never reformist enough. To its religious base, the party had sold out its principles for the sake of staying in office. When you try to please everyone, you end up inspiring no one. By the time voters reached the ballot box in 2021, they didn't see principled statesmen—they saw politicians who had adapted too comfortably to the perks of power.
The Organizational Fracture
An electoral defeat of that magnitude doesn't just happen at the ballot box; it festers internally first. Long before the 2021 wipeout, fractures were spreading through the party's leadership.
The forced departure of charismatic former Prime Minister Abdelilah Benkirane from government formation duties earlier in the decade had already left the party rudderless. His successor, Othmani, pursued a quiet, accommodating style of management that failed to command the same populist loyalty.
When the defeat finally hit, the internal blame game was fierce. High-profile ministers and founding figures openly criticized each other, lamenting that the party had turned into an insular fraternity rather than a dynamic political movement. Activists quietly walked away from party life, leaving behind an empty shell of an organization.
Lessons Learned and the Hard Road Back
Political entities rarely die forever; they mutate or regroup. In the years following their historic collapse, the PJD turned back to the past to find a way forward, reinstating Benkirane to steer the party's recovery.
The strategy since then has focused on rebuilding grassroots networks, sharpening parliamentary opposition, and reminding voters of their outsider status. Yet the fundamental questions haven't changed. Any party operating within Morocco's complex constitutional framework must constantly calculate where the boundaries of authority lie.
If the PJD has learned anything from its dramatic fall, it's that survival requires more than tactical obedience. Once you lose the trust of the people who put you there, winning back their confidence takes a lot more than nostalgia and fiery rhetoric. Real political resilience demands an honest reckoning with the compromises of the past and a clear-eyed vision for the future.
