Campaigning for the September 8 elections in Morocco is running amid speculations on vote-buying
The Justice and Development Party (PJD) denounced the “continued, abhorrent and massive use of money” in election campaigns on Monday.
In a press release, the PJD general secretariat said that the use of money to sway voters is a “disgraceful practice in violation of the legal requirements related to setting a ceiling for electoral campaign expenses for each ballot.”
Also, the party said that employing funds to win over voters violates the principle of equal opportunities between competitors and harms the integrity and credibility of electoral processes.
The party considered that the amount of money spent to influence the electoral process raises “legitimate questions about its source.”
The PJD denounced the “pressure its candidates are facing as a result of the shady revision of electoral lists in different constituencies, especially in villages.”
The PJD voiced “its recognition of the considerable efforts made by the various authorities of the party to cover all the legislative, regional and communal districts which have a proportional voting system.”
Party efforts come despite constraints imposed by certain rivals involved with local authorities.
Considering the pressure as “incompatible with the neutrality which should characterize the relationship between the local authorities and the various political bodies participating in the elections,” the PJD affirmed that it impacted the party in rural areas.
“These pressures had a clear impact on the party’s candidacy rate because of what party activists and its candidates suffered, whether through threats and intimidation or through promises and temptations from certain competitors,” the PJD statement read.
This comes at a time when PJD ranked eighth among parties in terms of the number of local nominations.
