Since the municipal elections June 12, parties have been jockeying to form alliances strong enough to secure control of the most coveted mayoral posts. As if forgetting that they ever had “ideologies” or “electoral programs” in the first place, parties will go to any length to imrpove their position within a given municipality. In Rabat, for example, the Islamist PJD even joined a coalition led by the Socialist party (USFP) in order to unseat unpopular mayor, Omar El Bahraoui. As one editorial pointed out, the entire closed-door post-election negotiations are a low point in Morocco’s democracy as “division and confrontation” win out over “efficiency and transparency.”

Despite all alliance possibilities being open, the PJD did complain that the PAM was pressuring other parties behind the scenes not to uphold agreements with the party. This was supposedly the case in Casablanca where the Constitutional Union (UC) bailed out of an agreement with the Islamists over the weekend. Morocco’s economic capital stayed with the UC, even though the PJD won the most seats. Fes was another big city which didn’t change hands, re-electing Hamid Chabat of Istiqlal. The PAM was able to take control of two of Morocco’s most important urban centers—Marrakech and Tangier—as well as pick up Meknes, formerly a PJD stronghold.