The Popular Movement (; ; , MP) is a

royalist A royalist supports a particular monarch as head of state for a particular kingdom, or of a particular dynastic claim. In the abstract, this position is royalism. It is distinct from monarchism, which advocates a monarchical system of gove ...

and traditionalist rural-focused political party in

Morocco Morocco, officially the Kingdom of Morocco, is a country in the Maghreb region of North Africa. It has coastlines on the Mediterranean Sea to the north and the Atlantic Ocean to the west, and has land borders with Algeria to Algeria–Morocc ...

. It is a member of

Liberal International Liberal International (LI) is a worldwide organization of liberalism, liberal political parties. The political international was founded in Oxford in 1947 and has become the pre-eminent network for liberal and progressive democratic parties aim ...

. The party has a history of cooperating with two other parties with a liberal orientation, the National Rally of Independents and the Constitutional Union, since 1993.

History

The Popular Movement was founded in 1957 by the

Berber Berber or Berbers may refer to: Ethnic group * Berbers, an ethnic group native to Northern Africa * Berber languages, a family of Afro-Asiatic languages Places * Berber, Sudan, a town on the Nile People with the surname * Ady Berber (1913–196 ...

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 the nationalist Istiqlal Party. Despite them being socially conservative, the party claimed to be Islamic socialists. They advocated for the distribution of land previously owned by French to tribes and local communities and that communal lands be administrated by communal traditions. They also advocated for the recognition of Berber customary law and a school system where Berber dialects were taught. The Popular Movement was dominated by

speakers and had the strongest support from rich peasants and large landowners and was the most active political organisation in the Royal Moroccan Armed Forces. Despite this, it did not have a distinctly Berber agenda and was the major party in the ruling coalition that instituted

Arabization Arabization or Arabicization () is a sociology, sociological process of cultural change in which a non-Arab society becomes Arabs, Arab, meaning it either directly adopts or becomes strongly influenced by the Arabic, Arabic language, Arab cultu ...

in 1965. 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'') and the Democratic Union (Union démocratique). The party is a full member of

, which it joined at the latter's Dakar Congress in 2003. In the

parliamentary election A general election is an electoral process to choose most or all members of a governing body at the same time. They are distinct from by-elections, which fill individual seats that have become vacant between general elections. General elections ...

held on 27 September 2002, the party won 27 out of the total 325 seats. It improved its standing in the

held on 7 September 2007, winning 41 out of 325 seats. The party won 32 out of 325 seats in the

held in November 2011, being the sixth party in the parliament.

Electoral results

Moroccan Parliament

;Notes * In 1963, the MP run under the

FDIC The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) is a State-owned enterprises of the United States, United States government corporation supplying deposit insurance to depositors in American commercial banks and savings banks. The FDIC was cr ...

References

External links

Popular Movement
official site {{DEFAULTSORT:Popular Movement 1958 establishments in Morocco Conservative liberal parties Conservative parties in Africa

Liberal parties in Morocco Monarchist parties in Morocco Political parties established in 1958 Political parties in Morocco