In a new polemical outing, Abdelilah Benkirane, secretary general of the Justice and Development Party (PJD), has been talked about again for bad reasons. During a meeting organized by the Union affiliated to its party, the National Labor Union in Morocco (UNTM), on the occasion of the Labor Day, the former head of government violently attacked Moroccans who advocate a hierarchy of national priorities under the slogan “Taza before Gaza”.
Faithful to his populist and divisive rhetoric, Benkirane did not hesitate to qualify these citizens as “microbes” and “donkeys”, shocking and unworthy insults of a statesman. This verbal skid reveals a disturbing drift in the political discourse of a manager whose credibility has been seriously started by a decade of unwarmed promises.
But the most worrying is undoubtedly his indirect call to jihad in Palestine, taking up a chapled slogan in football stadiums-“send us in Palestine to fight the Zionists”. An irresponsible statement, launched from a union gallery, which flirts dangerously with the incentive to violence, a thousand leagues from the principles of responsibility and moderation that one is entitled to expect from a former head of government.
-This revival of political activism seems to obey a clear strategy: to try a return in force of the PJD on the back of the Palestinian cause, by playing on collective emotion, instead of proposing a serious and structured program responding to the real concerns of Moroccans. Employment, health, education, housing, purchasing power: on all these fronts, Benkirane’s speech remains dramatically empty.
After being heavily sanctioned in the ballot boxes in 2021, the PJD seems unable to learn from its failure. The recycling of hollow slogans, selective indignation and victim posture are no longer enough to mask the absence of a credible political project. Benkirane, by armoring the monopoly of the defense of the Palestinian cause, insults not only his fellow citizens, but also the political intelligence of an increasingly demanding Moroccan people in terms of transparency, results, and accountability.
The question remains: how long will this type of emotional and aggressive discourse be masked by the lack of vision and concrete solutions?
