Morocco's youth are looking for a way forward as upcoming elections expose a crisis of trust

On July 30, over 70,000 people abruptly fled their home country to reach the Spanish enclave of Ceuta, leaving many Moroccans stunned as they were drenched by incessant live feeds of the crossing.

At least 145 died in the resulting stampedes or were submerged by the sea currents.

For days, the Ceuta crisis was on everyone's lips, with the same question on a loop. What could possibly have driven these young people to leave their homes to the peril of their lives, sometimes without informing their loved ones, in the search for a fancied future in an unwelcoming territory?

Nabila Mounib, a 66-year-old endocrinology professor and candidate of the Unified Socialist Party (PSU) for the September 23 legislative elections in the highly disputed district of Casablanca Anfa, provides us with a hint.

While leading the party from 2012 to 2023, Nabila has seen defeatism and despair grow among the youth, who lost confidence in the ability of class to improve their daily lives.

"When they throw themselves into the sea, they look elsewhere to obtain the dignity they cannot get in their country," she said.

"They are politicised in their own way. Rejecting everything is, in itself, a stance that can be considered political."

Over time, the Ceuta tragedy has quietly faded from public discussion. Yet the difficulties encountered by Morocco’s youth haven’t.

According to the High Commission for Planning (HCP), the country’s economy grew by 3.8% in real terms in 2024. Yet young Moroccans continue to face significant barriers to entering the labour market, with unemployment among those aged 15 to 24 reaching 36.7%.

Youth exclusion from employment and education is also substantial: HCP estimates that 1.5 million Moroccans aged 15 to 24 were neither in employment nor in education or training (NEET) in 2023, representing 25.6% of that age group.

Political participation has also varied considerably, with turnout in legislative elections ranging from 37% in 2007 to 50.18% in 2021, highlighting fluctuations in electoral participation and political engagement.

Despite its marginal electoral weight, the leftist alliance of the PSU and the Federation of the Democratic Left (FGD) aims to shake up the public debate by presenting candidates in most regions.

An MP since 2021, Nabila has been vocal about the powerlessness of Morocco’s parliament and has relentlessly called on the country’s political leaders for their inability to initiate genuine political reforms.

"We are the ones raising the only fundamental debate. The other parties have always focused on a socio-economic approach. We take a multifaceted approach, both political and socio-economic. The primary economic reform is a political one: the fight against corruption, the separation of powers, and accountability," she asserts.

The trust gap

Two weeks before the vote, the central siege of the PSU, located on a quiet alley behind the crowded jabber of Casablanca, feels like a bubble of optimism.

Safaa Benmasoud, a 39-year-old biology professor and member of the political bureau, is training a group of volunteers who showed up to carry out the campaign.

Safaa grew up with the leftist ideals of her elders, close to Mohamed Bensaid Ait Idder, a revered figure of Morocco’s left, joining the PSU as a sympathiser in 2006 and eventually becoming a party member five years later. 

She refutes the idea that the youth aren’t interested in or informed about politics. The issue lies in their lack of trust, she insists. "They consciously don’t believe in politics. They think, ‘Why should I be involved in politics’?" she tells The New Arab.

The first leaflet session in the Maarif district confirmed the general defiance of Moroccans towards political actors.

Many recognised Nabila from social networks, knew her orientations and even agreed with her assessment of the state of affairs.

Yet that didn't mean they would translate that vocal support into a vote. Several youngsters seemed quite excited to meet her, before some of them realised they weren’t registered on the voting lists.

Hanane, a member of the PSU national council, instructed a few on how to verify if they could vote and know where their voting booth would be located.

While the youth aged 18 to 24 number 3.85 million, only 632,000 are registered, representing a mere 4% of the electorate. 

A few days into the campaign, the competing parties didn’t seem to have succeeded in reaching out to youngsters through their political programmes. 

Rather, they hired them to distribute leaflets, as they had done for previous elections.

Those who shared them were generally unfamiliar with activism and ignored the basics of the political programmes they handed to passersby, who, in turn, often immediately threw them onto the sidewalks.

However, most knew the popular president of the Royal Football Federation, Faouzi Lekjaa, who has been Morocco’s budget minister in the outgoing government.

A generation losing faith in politics

Despite recently joining the Authenticity and Modernity Party (PAM), part of the ruling coalition, he isn’t running for a seat.

Yet he has monopolised the local media’s attention in his campaign for the party and was put forward as a possible chief of government.

Nevertheless, the hubbub around him seems so far to have done little to convince the sceptical voters dragging their feet to set their sights on a candidate.

Despite recent declarations from Lekjaa setting aside his future participation in government, the lack of a clear definition of political parties has kept numerous Moroccan citizens away. 

The campaign has a sense of déjà vu.

For several years, Aziz Akhanouche, Morocco’s chief of government since 2021 and a major business figure, had served in government as a non-partisan technocratic minister before taking the helm of the National Rally of Independents party in October 2016.

Political party-switching and the non-linear career paths of politicians have severely eroded voter trust, leading citizens to feel that political interests take precedence over them. 

Last year, the GENZ212 demonstrations clearly expressed the youth’s concerns.

Created online, the group called for educational and health reforms, in opposition to the rising budgets devoted to Morocco’s organisation of the 2030 World Cup.

The protesters were met with state repression. Since the eruption of the movement in September 2025, about 2,500 people have been prosecuted, of whom 950 were placed on provisional release and 1,550 kept in pretrial detention, according to AMDH activist Omar Arbib, leaving over 580 people currently in Morocco’s jails. 

That response only further deterred youngsters from political involvement.

Over the last decade, the spaces for political debate have already dramatically shrunk. Several organisations, trade unions, and political parties, including those that took part in the government, such as the PJD, have encountered organisational complications.

Summer camps that have mentored youth for decades have become increasingly difficult for non-governmental organisations to hold.

More importantly, the Union Nationale des Étudiants du Maroc (UNEM), a pivotal student union, has been progressively stripped of its role as an opposition force. 

The pressure suddenly grew in 2014, explained Tayeb Madmad, a member of the AMDH central bureau in Rabat, when the Interior Minister, Mohammed Hassad, made a statement in parliament, claiming that certain organisations were pursuing foreign agendas and could jeopardise the country's security.

At the AMDH, Morocco’s biggest human rights organisation, most of the 102 bureaux across the country have been denied official documents. Because of that, in order to organise any public event, activists have had to overcome a series of hurdles.

This drained their already limited financial resources, creating new difficulties, such as being unable to rent public rooms or organise public events.

Tayeb said the organisation couldn’t address youngsters as it used to through educational meetings in schools.

As he distributed his party’s programme in the Bourgogne district of Casablanca with a group of activists, 23-year-old Mohamed Zakaria Elaski, a candidate and university student who joined the Party of Progress and Socialism (PPS) two years ago, acknowledged the youth's disenchantment. 

"The political class failed to convince the youth. For them, voting has no impact," he regretted.

"The election period comes late [to raise their interest]. They should have convinced them to register to vote."

But as he went on, he added, "Either you participate, or you are subjected to politics."

Ilhem Rachidi is a freelance journalist focusing on protest movements and human rights issues, mainly in North Africa

Follow her on X: @RachidiIlhem