Morocco's First Female PM Faces Test on Women's Rights Reform

When King Mohammed VI announced Fatima Zahra El Mansouri as Morocco's first female prime minister in October, an old Islamic saying resurfaced in public debate: "a people who entrust their affairs to a woman will never succeed." Mustafa Ramid, a former justice minister from an Islamist-led government, posted the phrase on Facebook earlier that month, questioning whether a woman should hold the country's highest political office. His argument rested on a particular reading of balance—Morocco, he suggested, had found equilibrium between equality and state responsibility by keeping the monarchy itself reserved for men. The appointment, historic as it was, had cracked open a fault line that many Moroccans had hoped had already shifted.

El Mansouri, 63, arrived at the position with substantial credentials. She had served as mayor of Marrakech, held multiple government posts, and spent five years as minister for national territory planning, urban planning, housing and city policy under the previous prime minister. Her party, the Authenticity and Modernity Party, won the most seats in September's parliamentary election and formed a coalition controlling 207 of 395 parliamentary seats. Yet the day after her appointment, a local broadcaster sent reporters into the streets to ask Moroccan men what they thought of a woman leading the government. Several hesitated before answering. One older man, unnamed, said the arrangement felt strange to him, that he was unsure it sat well. Others accepted it only because the king had decided it. Online, the appointment became material for political satire—a video of two women fighting was shared with captions suggesting this was what parliamentary disagreements under El Mansouri might resemble.

Younger Moroccans, particularly women, responded differently. But conservative religious views retained considerable weight in the country's most contentious debates. The question of inheritance law illustrated the depth of resistance. Under current rules, a daughter typically receives half the share a son would in the same circumstances. Morocco's Higher Council of Ulemas, the body of religious scholars, had resisted calls for equal inheritance, citing Islamic jurisprudence. The council had also rejected proposals to abolish taasib, a rule requiring female orphans without brothers to share their inheritance with male relatives, sometimes distant ones. A 2022 report from Morocco's National Human Rights Council found that unequal inheritance rules contributed directly to poverty among women. Polygamy remained legal under certain conditions. Proposed changes to the family code—Morocco's Moudawana—would allow women to stipulate in marriage contracts that their husbands could not take another wife, but exceptions persisted, including provisions for a first wife's infertility or illness, which women's rights groups had criticized as violations of privacy and medical confidentiality.

These issues formed the core of a broader reform package announced in 2024 but not yet enacted into law. Rural girls' education presented another urgent challenge. Morocco's High Commission for Planning found in 2025 that only 55 percent of girls aged 15 to 17 attended school in rural areas, where poverty, early marriage, and dropout rates remained persistent barriers. In urban areas, the figure was 100 percent. Chifae Laazouzi, a young Moroccan woman, told the BBC that many girls in poor rural areas could not afford menstrual sanitary products, and that menstrual health remained treated as taboo. She hoped to see free products distributed in schools. The gap between rural and urban access reflected deeper inequalities that no single appointment could address.

El Mansouri herself framed her appointment as a milestone. "Being the first female head of government is not just a source of pride for me, but for all the women of the kingdom," she said. Yet since taking office, she had not indicated whether she intended to push through family code reforms. Throughout her political career spanning more than two decades, she had made no prominent public statements about women's rights, even as inheritance rules, polygamy, and the family code were being widely debated. Dr. Irene Fernandez-Molina, an expert on the Global South at the University of Exeter, contextualized the appointment within the monarchy's broader political interests. The September parliamentary election had drawn turnout of just 38 percent of registered voters—a two-decade low. Fernandez-Molina described the appointment as "authoritarian state feminism, a top-down, selective instrumentalisation of the struggle for women's rights for regime legitimation purposes." Promoting a woman to the highest government office might project an image of modernization and progress, she suggested, even as the political system and pace of social reform remained largely unchanged.

Yasmina Benslimane, a Moroccan women's rights advocate, acknowledged that the appointment broke a longstanding barrier. "It does challenge stereotypes, because it finally breaks a ceiling that was never broken," she said. But she emphasized that how El Mansouri arrived at power mattered. Her late father had been a pasha, a senior local official and diplomat. Her privileged background and access to political networks distinguished her from many Moroccan women with fewer opportunities to enter public life. For Benslimane and many women's rights groups, reform of the Moudawana remained the crucial test of the new government. Yet El Mansouri's room for maneuver was constrained by Morocco's political structure. The king retained extensive powers over defense and foreign affairs. The head of government operated within a system where authority was shared. When it came to family code reform, she would have to confront the country's religious scholars, predominantly men. Sara Zouiten, another young Moroccan woman, captured the uncertainty many felt: "I don't think El Mansouri should be judged by the fact that she is a woman. Being a woman in power doesn't automatically make someone a champion of women's rights. Her party presents itself as a modernising political force, so I want to see whether that translates into actual change." The appointment had opened a conversation. Whether it would produce reform remained an open question.