Popular Movement

Popular Movement الحركة الشعبية Mouvement populaire
Leader	Mohand Laenser
Founded	1957 (1957)
Headquarters	Rabat, Morocco
Ideology	Liberalism, Economic liberalism, Conservative liberalism
Political position	Centre-right
International affiliation	Liberal International
Seats in the Assembly of Representatives:	41 / 325
Website
www.alharaka.ma

The Popular Movement (Arabic: الحركة الشعبية‎) is a conservative liberal party in Morocco established in 1957 by the Berber Caid Mahjoubi Aherdane with help from Dr. Abdelkrim al-Khatib who founded later a splinter party (Mouvement populaire démocratique et constitutionnel) that became the Justice and Development Party.

The present party results from a 25 March 2006 merger between the main party which had kept the original name and two splinter parties, the National Popular Movement (Mouvement National Populaire, Alharaka alwatania ashaabia) and the Democratic Union (Union démocratique).^[1][2]

The party is a full member of Liberal International, which it joined at the latter's Dakar Congress in 2003.^[3]

In the parliamentary election held on 27 September 2002, the party won 27 out of 325 seats. It improved its standing in the parliamentary election held on 7 September 2007, winning 41 out of 325 seats.^[4]

See also

• Liberalism
• Liberalism worldwide
• List of liberal parties

References

1. ^ M’Hamed Hamrouch, Mahjoubi Aherdane accusé d’avoir provoqué le retrait du MP du gouvernement, Aujourd'hui Le Maroc, 19 October 2008
2. ^ Hicham Bennani, Mouvement populaire : Prémices d’un éclatement, Le Journal Hebdomadaire, 11 April 2009
3. ^ Entry on the Popular Movement at Liberal International website.
4. ^ "Moroccans favor conservative party instead of ushering in Islamic party", Associated Press (International Herald Tribune), 9 September 2007.

External links

• Popular Movement official site