RABAT: The Express Tribune, citing the state-run Maghreb Arabe Presse, reports that King Mohammed VI received the members of the new cabinet and presided over their appointment ceremony. Fatima Ezzahra El Mansouri is the first Moroccan woman to hold the country's top government post.
The new government is a four-party coalition: El Mansouri's Authenticity and Modernity Party, the Istiqlal Party, the Socialist Union of Popular Forces and the Party of Progress and Socialism.
According to official figures, the cabinet has 32 members, including ministers and ministers-delegate. Seven are women, including the prime minister, compared with six in the previous government led by Aziz Akhannouch.
Abdelouafi Laftit stays on as interior minister, Nasser Bourita as foreign minister, Abdellatif Ouahbi as justice minister and Ahmed Toufiq as minister of Islamic affairs and endowments. The cabinet also creates a new Ministry of Artificial Intelligence, Digital Transformation and Administrative Reform, headed by Ahmed Rahhou.
El Mansouri's party came first in the September 23 elections with 97 seats, and the king asked her to form a government on September 29.
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