More than sixty days have passed since the sacking of three ministers and a secretary of state who served in the government of Mr Saad Eddine El Othmani.
These dismissals created quite a stir at the time since they involved ministers who were ‘political’ figures, one of whom was the head of a political party.
Although the head of the government lost no time in consulting with those parties whose members had been sacked and the two parties in question, the PPS and the MP, swiftly announced that they intended to remain in the ruling coalition despite the turn of events, nothing much has happened since.
Those ministers filling in on an interim basis continue to perform their various ministerial duties while public opinion, as reflected by the media, is beginning to show signs of impatience and to question this vacuum.
And yet, just two weeks after the royal tsunami, names were leaked, particularly those of PPS candidates for ministerial positions, with Mr El Othmani having officially received the party’s list of candidates from none other than the General Secretary himself, Mr Nabil Benabdallah.
Analysts and other editorial writers have been left guessing, amidst concerns over yet another long period of limbo, such as the one that followed the PJD’s electoral victory in November 2016, which culminated with Mr Saad Eddine El Othmani replacing Mr Abdelilah Benkirane and being tasked with setting up a coalition government.
Obviously, history never repeats itself in an identical fashion except in a farce and there is very little likelihood of the same scenario repeating today.
It is very obvious that the head of the government is not the problem and that his style is more acceptable to the ‘high echelons of power’ than that of his fiery predecessor.
So much so, in fact, that El Othmani was able to take over the post of General Secretary of the PJD without any opposition whatsoever, thereby achieving a complete victory over his arch-rival who would have liked to have kept the post in order to make a comeback at some point in the future.
The lack of news and information concerning the appointment of successors to Mr Benabdallah, Mr El Ouardi, Mr Hassad and Mr Bencheikh prompts one to believe that the names proposed for the ministerial posts do not appear to appeal to the ‘higher echelons of power’. As a result, Mr El Othmani has very little room for manoeuver, especially when it comes to communicating about a matter of keen interest to the general public.
It is well understood that several candidates have been rejected although only the names of the PPS’s potential candidates were leaked in the press. Confirmation of such ‘information’ will certainly not come from the Royal Palace.
But it will not come from the political parties in question either since such a scenario is hardly positive for them or for the candidates whose names had been proposed as successors to those ‘dismissed’.
We are prepared to wager, however, that the political parties in question will make every effort to unearth candidates who are ‘rare birds’, failing which, their image which has already been tarnished by the dismissals, would take a serious beating.
But this limbo and the reasons for it would most certainly have dashed the unrealistic hopes of some of the candidates for the ministerial posts who have been waiting for a very long time to be on this type of short-list…
Fahd YATA
Original article : https://lnt.ma/saad-eddine-o-frere-saad-eddine-ne-vois-rien-venir/
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