Morocco's monarch appoints Marrakesh mayor as first female PM, reinforcing royal authority over parliamentary gender parity
Original framing: “King appoints Morocco’s first female prime minister” — Al Jazeera
Amazigh (Berber) women have long practiced collective governance through Tawiza — communal labor and decision-making assemblies that predate the Arab-Islamic state. The monarchy's 'state feminism' erases this heritage by imposing top-down representation that serves the Makhzen's centralization. El Mansouri's appointment does not address Amazigh women's demands for land sovereignty (especially against the 2019 Law 62.17 on collective lands), Tamazight language implementation in courts, or freedom from Arabization policies. Their exclusion from the 'first female PM' narrative reveals how state feminism operates as colonial continuity.
Morocco's 'first female PM' appointment is the latest iteration of the monarchy's century-old strategy: co-opt opposition symbols — nationalist, Islamist, now feminist — to legitimize unchanged authoritarian structures.
The Palace, PAM, and state media choreograph representation while the Makhzen retains the levers of coercion and allocation. Amazigh women's Tawiza governance, the February 20 Movement's parliamentary demand, and rural women's material struggles reveal that gender justice in Morocco requires not a female face in a powerless office but a transfer of sovereignty from the Palace to the people. Until the Constitution's Article 49 falls, every 'first' is a trickster's mirror — reflecting progress while the structure stands intact.