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Benkirane: Justice and Development Party will not change its strategic policies

December 6, 2021 at 9:03 am

Morocco’s former Prime Minister Abdelilah Benkirane in Rabat, Morocco on 16 March 2017 [FADEL SENNA/AFP/Getty Images]

Secretary-General of Morocco’s Justice and Development Party, Abdelilah Benkirane, said yesterday that the party “will not change its strategic policies based on the Quran and Hadiths” of Prophet Mohammad (peace be upon him).

Reported by Rai Al Youm, Benkirane said during the first meeting of the party’s National Council: “The leadership acted with great responsibility over the arrangements of the exceptional conference, the elections and resignations.”

“Today, we are facing the future. We should not remain busy in the complications of the past,” referring to the party’s retreat in the country’s parliamentary elections in September.

The Justice and Development Party, he explained, “is not a group of people, but an idea and spirit which exists in society.”

Benkirane said that politics “must not” be used to achieve personal gains, citing his refusal to appoint his son-in-law to the office of prime minister despite him having all the necessary qualifications.

The party, however, will have a religious compass. “The Palestine issue is a religious one,” he said. “It is not necessary to have the same stance as the state, but this does not mean we condemn the state because it has its own justifications,” he said in relation to Morocco’s decision to normalise ties with the occupation state of Israel and sign defence deals with it. He noted that the Moroccan king still supports the Palestinian people.

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