Morocco’s Benkirane denies affiliation to Muslim Brotherhood

Benkirane headed the Moroccan government from November 2011 until March 2017 in the aftermath of electoral victory of his Islamist Justice and Development Party in the parliamentary elections in 2011. However, the Islamist party failed to achieve absolute majority in 2016 parliamentary election held in October.

Justice and Development Party nominated Benkirane to keep his position as a prime minister, while he failed to form a national unity government. In response, Moroccan King Mohamed VI decided to exclude him from his position in March and appointed Saadeddine Othmani, who served as a foreign minister under Benkirane, as a new prime minister.

Benkirane, who serves as Director General of Justice and Development Party, said that he has reservations about the political approach adopted by Muslim Brotherhood, while I will not go through the details.

Benkirane paid tribute to Muslim Brotherhood and writings of its leaders, including Hassan Al-Bana and Sayyid Qutb, describing the group as the first school from which they inherited the Islamic culture.

However, he denied any relation between his party and Muslim Brotherhood, claiming that Justice and Development Party has its independent political line. He continued, “We grew up apart from our leaders who spent their lives in exile. We cut relations with them and created our political approach.”