Brussels, 04/01/2012 (Agence Europe) - A new government came into being in Morocco on the afternoon of Tuesday 3 January. A feature of the new government is that top jobs go to Islamists of the Justice and Development Party (PJD). The leader of that party, Abdelilah Benkirane, takes on the post of prime minister at the head of a four-party executive body made up of PJD, the Istiqlal (Independent) Party, the Popular Movement (MP) and the left-wing PPS.
The post of foreign minister goes to Saad-Eddine El Othmani (PJD), who is flanked by a deputy minister classified as a “technician”, Youssef Amrani, who was hitherto secretary general of the Union for the Mediterranean (UfM) just months after his tenure officially began in July 2011.
Amrani's departure from the UfM leaves the top post of the Barcelona-based institution vacant, and raises the question of the UfM's survival at a time when the region's political situation has heightened the disinterest and doubts surrounding the UfM's creation in Paris, on 13 July 2008. (FB/transl.jl)