Five Moroccan left-wing parties have set up a new grouping called the Rally of the Democratic Left (RGD), the main aim of which is to lay the groundwork for a fully-fledged political party, the group said on Wednesday.
”The objective is to rally leftist movements around a common programme,” said Mustapha Miftah, a representative of the fledgling RGD, which was formed at a meeting on Sunday.
”We are avoiding setting up a united party for the moment, and there is mobilisation for concerted work that avoids useless ideological wars,” he said.
The RGD was created ”in response to the need for a large, credible socialist party”, said Mohamed Sassi, leader of Loyalty to Democracy, one of the parties that formed the new grouping.
”A left-wing party … based on a multiplicity of ideologies has not yet been tested in our country,” he said.
”This form of organisation is the one we have chosen to free ourselves from the vestiges of the zaouia [brotherhood] and to modernise political relations,” he said.
The parties in the RGD are the National Ittihadi Congress, the Avant-garde Democratic Socialist Party, the Loyalty to Democracy group, Annahj Addimocrati (Democratic Way) and the United Socialist Left.
The announcement of the creation of the grouping came a day after King Mohammed VI reshuffled the government led by Prime Minister Driss Jettou.
The human rights minister was dropped and several ministries were regrouped, reducing the number in the government from 37 to 34.
The key foreign affairs, interior, finance, justice, agriculture and Islamic affairs portfolios were untouched.
The government is still dominated by the Popular Forces Socialist Union and the conservative Istiqlal parties. — Sapa-AFP