Morocco names new government, keeps foreign and interior ministers

Rabat (Reuters) – Morocco’s King Mohammed named a new government on Thursday after last month’s election, keeping the foreign and interior ministers in place but appointing Nadia Fettah Alaoui as finance minister, the state news agency reported.

In a monarchy where the king has final say on all major decisions, the new government’s main task will be to implement a development model that the palace has commissioned aimed at reducing inequality, cutting poverty and fostering growth.

Aziz Akhannouch, appointed prime minister after his liberal RNI party came first in the election, has formed a coalition with the liberal PAM and the conservative Istiqlal parties.

The three parties command a comfortable majority in the parliament, with a combined 270 seats compared to the 198 needed to pass legislation.

The new finance minister, Alaoui, who was tourism minister in the previous government, will be one of seven women in the cabinet, including the former mayor of Marrakech, Fatima Ezzahra El Mansouri.

The head of the PAM party, Abdellatif Ouahbi, was appointed justice minister and Istiqlal leader Nizar Baraka took the portfolio covering equipment and water.

The moderate Islamist PJD party, which had been the largest after the previous two elections and whose leaders have served as prime ministers since 2011, crashed to a heavy defeat and said it would join the opposition together with leftist parties.