Appointed Friday, Relieved Sunday

Madiha Khayr was a member of Morocco’s government for two days. King Mohammed VI appointed the cabinet of Head of Government Fatima Ezzahra El Mansouri at the Royal Palace in Rabat on Friday 16 October, Hespress published the list: 32 names, being the Head of Government, the Secretary-General of the Government, 19 ministers and 11 ministers delegate. Khayr, of the Istiqlal Party, was minister delegate to the Minister of National Education, Preschool, Professional Training and Qualification, in charge of professional training and qualification.

On Sunday 18 October the Royal Cabinet announced that the King had received a request from the Head of Government to end her functions and “a bien voulu accepter ladite demande, conformément aux dispositions de l’article 47 de la Constitution,” in the French text published by Le360. Hespress’s English version reads: “has graciously approved the request, in accordance with the provisions of Article 47 of the Constitution.” The statement gives no reason.

What the government said

The government spokesman, Samir Belfkih, issued a statement the same day. Le Matin reports that he said the executive had followed the question of the appointment and the circulation of personal judicial and medical information concerning her. Hespress, which summarises rather than quotes the statement, says he described the decision as based on a shared assessment among the parties of the parliamentary majority, and as part of the government’s responsibility to secure favourable conditions for completing its constitutional formation and winning parliamentary approval.

He did not say what the information was or whether it was accurate, Hespress notes. Neither the Royal Cabinet nor the government has said anything more. This publication has not seen the documents and makes no finding about them or about Khayr, and nothing in the official record describes their contents.

Whose power it was

Article 47 of the 2011 constitution gives two routes for removing a single minister. In the English translation published by the Constitute Project, the King “can, on His initiative, and after consultation with the Head of Government, terminate the functions of one or more members of the government.” Separately, “The Head of Government can demand of the King to terminate the functions of one or more members of the government.” Hespress reports that this request was made under the fourth paragraph, the second of those routes, and the Royal Cabinet’s own wording, a request received and accepted, matches it.

That fixes who initiated the removal: El Mansouri, not the palace acting alone. The text does not answer whether anyone was consulted before she asked, and no source read for this piece says.

The vote still ahead

The spokesman’s reference to parliamentary approval points to a step the government has not yet taken. Under Article 88, once the King has designated the members of the government, the Head of Government presents her programme to both chambers of Parliament meeting jointly; each chamber debates it, and the House of Representatives votes. The government “is invested, after having obtained the confidence of the Chamber of Representatives, expressed by the vote of the absolute majority of the members composing said chamber,” in the Constitute Project’s translation. Appointment and investiture are separate events, and the second has not happened.

The four parties of the majority, the Authenticity and Modernity Party, Istiqlal, the Socialist Union of Popular Forces and the Party of Progress and Socialism, hold 207 of the 395 seats, according to Hespress and Bladi.net. An absolute majority of the membership is 198, so the margin is nine. The parties announced their agreement in a joint statement on 12 October, Morocco World News reported; the National Rally of Independents, which led the outgoing government, is outside it. When El Mansouri was designated, this publication noted that the constitution set no date by which she had to find those 198 votes. It still sets none for the investiture vote.

What the removal leaves open

Khayr was also a member of Parliament. Hespress reports that she was elected in Beni Mellal in September with more than 21,000 votes, that she had become president of Istiqlal’s parliamentary group, a post the party must now decide how to fill, and that she was Istiqlal’s only woman in the new cabinet. No source read here reports who will take the professional training portfolio or how Istiqlal has responded.

The sequence so far is a cabinet named on a Friday, a minister removed on a Sunday at the Head of Government’s request, and an investiture vote with no date. Article 47 let one minister go in two days. Article 88 still requires 198 votes before the government is invested.