General Secretary Mohand Laenser Political position Centre to Centre-right | Founder Abdelkrim al-Khatib | |
Founded 1957; 60 years ago (1957) Headquarters 66 rue Patrice Lumumba, Rabat, Morocco Ideology Royalism
Agrarianism
Conservative liberalism | ||
The Popular Movement (Berber: Amussu Aɣerfan, Arabic: الحركة الشعبية, French: Mouvement populaire) is a royalist and traditionalist rural-focused political party in Morocco. It is a member of Liberal International.
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History
The Popular Movement was founded in 1958 by the Berber tribal chief Mahjoubi Aherdane with help from Abdelkrim al-Khatib who founded later a splinter party (Mouvement populaire démocratique et constitutionnel) that became the Justice and Development Party. It was initially a rural party with conservative and tribal orientation, that unconditionally supported the monarchy and aimed at countering nationalist Istiqlal Party. Although the party has been dominated by Tamazight (Berber) speakers, it has not developed a distinct Berber agenda.
The present party results from a 25 March 2006 merger between the main party which had kept the original name and two splinter parties, the National Popular Movement (Mouvement National Populaire, Alharaka alwatania ashaabia) and the Democratic Union (Union démocratique).
The party is a full member of Liberal International, which it joined at the latter's Dakar Congress in 2003.
In the parliamentary election held on 27 September 2002, the party won 27 out of the total 325 seats. It improved its standing in the parliamentary election held on 7 September 2007, winning 41 out of 325 seats.
The party won 32 out of 325 seats in the parliamentary election held in November 2011, being the sixth party in the parliament.