The Co-Optation Of Notables By Political Parties In Moroccan Elections – Analysis

Key Takeaways:

• Ahead of Morocco’s Sept. 23, 2026 legislative vote (1,850 lists, 7,288 candidacies for 395 seats), Mohamed Chtatou argues the real filter is who parties pick: “notables” who already convert family, money, land, associations, or local fame into votes—not militants with a program.
• He traces that pattern from classic elite studies through hybrid new elites (entrepreneurs, graduates, NGO leaders). Parties need their networks; notables need the party label. Personal machines can outlast party brands, blur “activist” vs. “notable” parties, and turn representation into brokerage and uneven campaign costs.
• Cited Afrobarometer (March 2026): only about a third of 18–35-year-olds trust parties, parliament, or local councils. The author wants clearer nominations, member say, training for people without capital, real campaign-finance checks, and MPs judged on legislative work—not the end of local elites, but elites answerable to citizens rather than clienteles. 

From Traditional Notability to the Territorial Production of Electoral Power

Introduction: When Parties Seek Candidates Who Can Win Rather Than Militants Who Can Represent

As Morocco approaches the legislative elections of September 23, 2026, one question remains relatively invisible behind the debates devoted to electoral programs, alliances, and campaign strategies: how are candidates themselves selected? This question is far from secondary. An election does not begin in the polling booth. It begins much earlier, within the internal mechanisms of political parties, in negotiations over nominations, in local networks, within influential families, among economic and associative circles, and in territories where certain personalities already possess sufficient social capital to transform their local reputation into electoral influence. Morocco today has a legally pluralistic and institutionally structured party system, but this pluralism does not necessarily mean that candidate selection everywhere rests upon genuine programmatic or activist competition. The 2026 legislative elections offer a particularly interesting illustration of this tension: 1,850 electoral lists were submitted nationally, representing 7,288 candidacies for the 395 seats in the House of Representatives, or more than eighteen candidates per seat on average. Ministry of the Interior of the Kingdom of Morocco – 2026 legislative elections This abundance of candidates could be interpreted as a sign of democratic vitality. It can also be examined from another perspective: what is the social, economic, and territorial composition of the candidates who constitute this electoral supply?

The question of the co-optation of notables therefore becomes central. The term “notable” should be preferred here to “noble,” even though the popular expression “local nobility” may capture a certain social reality. A notable is not necessarily a member of a nobility in the legal or aristocratic sense. He or she may be a member of an old and influential family, a descendant of a caïdal lineage, a landowner, entrepreneur, commune president, professional, association leader, or local personality possessing an extensive network of relationships. What defines the notable is not primarily a title, but the capacity to convert social, economic, familial, or territorial capital into political influence. Moroccan notability has thus survived transformations of the state, urbanization, administrative modernization, economic opening, and changes in the party system. Indeed, it has adapted to these transformations. Old local elites have not simply disappeared to make way for a new generation. They have often been joined, challenged, or hybridized by new figures of proximity: entrepreneurs, graduates, women from the associative sector, “children of the neighborhood,” professionals, and civil-society actors. Aziz El Maoula El Iraki speaks in this regard of a hybridization between old and new local elites, emphasizing that co-optation remains an important mechanism through which social elites enter institutional political life. WorldCat – Iraki, 2020

The democratic difficulty emerges when this notability ceases to be merely one component of representation and becomes the principal mechanism through which representation itself is produced. The issue is therefore not the existence of notables. Every society possesses local elites. The question is whether political parties select their candidates because they embody a collective project, competence, and representative capacity, or because they already possess a network capable of producing votes. This distinction is essential for understanding contemporary Moroccan electoral politics.

Notability: An Old Social Institution in a Modern Democracy

Notability is not an anomaly of the Moroccan political system. It belongs to its social history. Long before the emergence of modern political parties, local societies were structured by families, lineages, religious authorities, landowners, merchants, intermediaries, and prestigious figures whose influence extended far beyond their economic position. The notable was the person who possessed the capacity to mediate between the local community and the authorities. This function survived both the colonial period and independence, although its forms have changed considerably. Classical studies of Moroccan elites already emphasized the importance of networks, clienteles, and co-optation in the formation of governing groups. John Waterbury, in his analysis of Moroccan politics, highlighted the importance of intermediary networks, personal relationships, and mechanisms of co-optation in structuring political power (Waterbury, 1970). Waterbury, The Commander of the Faithful More recent scholarship devoted to local elites has shown that notability should not be understood simply as an archaic remnant, but as a dynamic category capable of recomposing itself in response to economic, administrative, and institutional transformations.

Aziz Iraki emphasizes that the construction of local notability rests upon several resources: family name, territory, neighborhood solidarities, educational prestige, associative engagement, and the ability to represent a local space. Bibliothèque nationale de France – Iraki, 2003 Notability is therefore a social construction of legitimacy. The notable is not merely wealthy or powerful; he or she is recognized as someone who “matters,” someone whose intervention is believed capable of producing an effect. This dimension of recognition is fundamental in electoral politics. In a system where voters know candidates personally, where local communities are relatively interconnected, and where administrative services may still be experienced through interpersonal relationships, personal reputation can be more immediately intelligible than a party program. The local candidate may therefore possess a considerable advantage: his or her political capital is already partially constituted before the official beginning of the campaign.

From Traditional Notability to Modern Notability

It would nevertheless be erroneous to portray contemporary Moroccan politics as merely a survival of a traditional rural Morocco. Notability has changed. The contemporary notable may be urban, educated, entrepreneurial, connected to social media, and fully integrated into the modern economy. He or she may own a business, lead an association, practice a liberal profession, and simultaneously maintain relationships with local authorities, economic networks, and political organizations. The transformation is therefore less a matter of replacement than of hybridization. Old influential families may coexist with entrepreneurs who have accumulated economic capital; traditional intermediaries may be joined by association leaders; tribal networks may overlap with professional and digital networks. Forms change, but the function of mediation persists. This is precisely what research on the renewal of Moroccan local elites demonstrates: opening the political field to new figures has not necessarily eliminated old hierarchies; it can produce their recomposition. New actors often have to negotiate their entry into a political space already structured by networks of power. WorldCat – Iraki, 2020 This hybridization is particularly important in medium-sized cities, peri-urban spaces, and rural territories where the modern state and local social structures do not necessarily exclude one another. The same individual may simultaneously be an entrepreneur, association president, member of a well-known family, administrative intermediary, and political activist. The new notable is therefore less a “local lord” than an entrepreneur of social relationships.

Why Do Political Parties Co-opt Notables?

The answer is relatively simple: because they believe these individuals can win. A political party seeking to win a seat in a particular constituency faces a fundamental constraint: it must transform a national organization into local votes. This transformation requires time, money, and activist energy. The most immediate solution is to find someone who already possesses what the party would otherwise have to build: territorial implantation. The notable often possesses a family network, a local reputation, economic relationships, intermediary capacity, detailed knowledge of the territory, associative networks, campaign teams, networks of supporters, and an ability to mobilize voters. The party, in turn, provides another set of resources: the nomination, the party label, national visibility, access to parliamentary competition, and institutional legitimacy. This represents a form of political division of labor: the party possesses the brand; the notable possesses the network. The party possesses the national organization; the notable possesses territorial implantation. The party possesses the program; the notable may possess the votes.

This logic helps explain why James Liddell considers notables a particularly revealing feature of Moroccan politics. In his study of the 2007 legislative elections and the creation of the Authenticity and Modernity Party, he analyzes the persistence of personalism, patron-client relations, and notability within a system formally based on parties and institutions (Liddell, 2010). James Liddell, “Notables, Clientelism and the Politics of Change in Morocco” Co-optation is therefore not necessarily an irrational decision by political parties. From the standpoint of electoral competition, it can be perfectly rational. This is precisely what makes it durable.

The Paradox: The Party Sometimes Becomes the Notable’s Vehicle

In an ideal party democracy, the candidate represents the party. He or she carries its program, defends its ideology, and participates in its organization. In a highly notabilized system, the relationship can be reversed: the party becomes the candidate’s vehicle. This reversal is politically significant. When the candidate’s personal identity is stronger than the party identity, changing parties becomes less politically costly. The notable can preserve his or her network even after changing political labels. The electorate may continue to follow the individual because voters primarily support a person, family, territory, or network.

This is where party fragmentation takes on a particular meaning. The multiplication of parties does not necessarily mean an equivalent multiplication of visions of society. It may also reflect the multiplication of electoral vehicles through which groups and individuals negotiate access to political representation. Mounia Bennani-Chraïbi has shown, through ethnographic observation of municipal campaigns in Casablanca, how the boundary between “activist parties” and “parties of notables” can become blurred. The choice of list leaders, running mates, and electoral agents may be shaped by political-market and clientelist dynamics, including within parties historically associated with strong activist cultures. TAFRA – “Faire campagne au Maroc” This observation is fundamental: notabilization is not simply a characteristic of particular parties; it can become a cross-cutting logic of the party field.

From Electoral Clientele to Political Brokerage

A simplistic understanding of clientelism should nevertheless be avoided. Clientelism does not necessarily mean that a candidate directly distributes money in exchange for votes. It can be much subtler. It rests upon a personalized and reciprocal relationship in which citizens expect politicians to possess the ability to intervene on their behalf. The notable thus becomes a political broker. He or she may intervene with the administration, assist with a procedure, facilitate a contact, support an association, transmit a request, or mobilize a relationship. In doing so, the notable constructs a reputation as a “useful person.”

This intermediary function matters because it reveals a contradiction within the modern state: the more institutions become formally universal, the more their concrete accessibility may continue to be experienced through personalized relationships. Administrative digitalization, regionalization, and modernization of public services should gradually reduce this dependence. Yet as long as citizens believe that personal intervention can accelerate or facilitate access to a resource, the broker retains political utility. Electoral clientelism is therefore also an economy of personal trust. Citizens do not necessarily trust the institution; they may trust the person who claims to be able to open that institution to them.

Money, Networks, and the Cost of Electoral Competition

The co-optation of notables must also be situated within the material economy of electoral campaigns. A modern campaign requires teams, travel, meetings, communication, offices, logistical resources, and continuous territorial presence. This reality creates asymmetries among candidates. Someone who already possesses economic resources or a professional network enjoys a significant advantage. Recent research on electoral clientelism in Morocco demonstrates that mobilization practices and clientelist exchanges continue to raise important questions about political representation. A 2024 study of the 2021 general elections examines precisely the relationship between clientelist networks, vote buying, candidate selection, and the consequences of these practices for political representation. Es-Satte, “Electoral Clientelism and the Problem of Political Representation in Morocco” More recent research on Morocco has also examined the relationship between financial transfers associated with migration and certain vote-buying practices, while emphasizing the difficulty of directly measuring a phenomenon that is highly sensitive and often concealed. Camatarri, Kadiri & Østergaard-Nielsen, 2026

It would nevertheless be excessive to conclude that every campaign conducted by a notable is clientelist or that every economically well-resourced candidate buys votes. The structural issue is different: unequal resources can influence who actually has the capacity to run and conduct a competitive campaign. Democracy can therefore be legally open while remaining socially selective.

Co-optation and the Reproduction of Elites

The question of co-optation naturally leads to the issue of elite reproduction. A representative democracy should periodically permit the renewal of political representatives. Yet when parties search for candidates who already possess resources, they tend to reproduce the individuals who possess those resources. The phenomenon can be described as a cycle: social capital → party nomination → political office → new resources → stronger network → renewed nomination. The election therefore does not necessarily destroy social hierarchies; it can transform them into political hierarchies.

Recent research on elections and the reproduction of political elites in Morocco argues precisely that elections can function simultaneously as democratic mechanisms of representation and institutional mechanisms for reproducing elites, particularly through the interaction of the electoral system, political parties, and networks of influence. Wafaa Chahboun, “Elections and the Reproduction of Political Elites” This conclusion nevertheless requires qualification. Reproduction is never total. Elections also permit new actors to enter. Quotas, associations, social transformations, the emergence of younger generations, and the professionalization of politics can open doors that were previously closed. But formal openness does not guarantee equal access in practice. The real issue is therefore one of elite circulation.

Women and Youth: Formal Opening and the Limits of Co-optation

The issue becomes particularly sensitive when women and young people are considered. Moroccan electoral reforms have progressively sought to improve women’s representation. Yet the selection of female candidates remains largely controlled by party organizations. Research published in Political Science Research and Methods emphasizes the central role of party leaders in candidate selection and notes that candidate-selection procedures can be criticized for their lack of transparency, with clientelist dynamics particularly visible in some forms of women’s political recruitment. Cambridge University Press – “Competent legislators or mere pawns?” The challenge is therefore not to confuse numerical representation with democratization of political recruitment. A woman may enter Parliament without the mechanisms that produce political candidacies having fundamentally changed.

The same applies to young people. Parties may promote young candidates, but if these candidates are selected primarily because they belong to influential families, possess economic resources, or are close to party leaders, generational renewal remains partial. Youth should not merely constitute a statistical category on electoral lists. It must be able to become an autonomous force in the production of politics.

The Crisis of Trust: When Citizens No Longer Believe in the Candidate

The co-optation of notables must also be connected to the question of trust. Recent Afrobarometer data are particularly revealing. In March 2026, the organization reported that only around one-third of young Moroccans aged 18 to 35 expressed trust in Parliament, municipal councils, the head of government, or political parties. It also found that young people were less likely than older generations to vote, feel close to a political party, or engage in certain traditional forms of political participation. Afrobarometer – Moroccan youth and political trust, 2026

This situation cannot be explained solely by the presence of notables. Yet notabilization contributes to a broader perception of politics as closed, personalized, and distant from citizens’ everyday experiences. This is where the question of what I have called the “Great Rendezvous with Abstention” becomes particularly relevant. Abstention is not always an expression of political disinterest. It can express the belief that the political offer is not worthy of personal investment through voting (Chtatou, 2026). Mohamed Chtatou – “The Great Rendezvous with Abstention?” profile and publication record When voters believe that candidates have already been selected by parties, networks, or families to which they have no access, their sense of political efficacy diminishes. They no longer ask only, “Which candidate should I choose?” They may instead ask, “What will my vote actually change?” This second question is much more dangerous for democracy.

Notability and Electoral Neo-Tribalism

Contemporary notability must also be connected to the question of neo-tribalism. This does not mean, of course, that Moroccan society has remained tribal in the traditional sense. Such an interpretation would be excessively simplistic. Rather, it involves observing the persistence or reactivation of logics of solidarity, loyalty, and belonging within a modern political context. The family can become a unit of electoral mobilization. The neighborhood can function as a solidarity space. The douar can produce a collective logic. A professional network can become an electoral network. Social media can even reproduce territorial or familial solidarities in digital form.

Modern politics does not therefore necessarily destroy older solidarities; it can provide them with new instruments. Electoral neo-tribalism thus becomes a form of modernization of older logics of belonging. It may combine family, territory, economic resources, digital networks, and local identity. This development is particularly important in the context of Generation Z. As I have argued elsewhere, younger Moroccan generations can simultaneously be highly modern in their digital practices while maintaining, in certain situations, strong forms of family and territorial solidarity (Chtatou, 2025). Mohamed Chtatou, “Aspects of Clientelism Due to Neo-Tribalism in Moroccan Political System” Social modernity does not therefore automatically mean political individualization.

The Notable and the Territory

One of the most common mistakes is to understand notability solely as a relationship between an individual and his or her voters. In reality, it is also a relationship between an individual and a territory. The notable sometimes embodies a space. He or she may be identified with a city, neighborhood, tribe, province, commune, or region. Political identity thereby becomes partly territorial.

This is why the reform of advanced regionalization is particularly important. If advanced regionalization is to produce a new form of territorial citizenship, it must also produce new forms of representation. In other words, “Morocco of Territories” cannot simply mean the administrative transfer of competences; it must also mean the democratization of territorial representation. If the same notabilized networks capture local and national institutions, regionalization risks moving the problem rather than solving it. Genuine democratic regionalization should allow a new generation of representatives to emerge from the territories without becoming prisoners of territorial clienteles. This argument is consistent with the territorial convergence perspective developed in my recent work on the 2026 elections. Mohamed Chtatou, “Morocco of Territories”

The Political Party Confronts Its Own Paradox

The paradox facing Moroccan political parties is therefore considerable. They need notables because they want to win. But they must also reduce their dependence on notables if they want to rebuild their legitimacy. They seek personalities capable of rapidly mobilizing voters, but this strategy can weaken the activism that should constitute their principal long-term resource. They seek proximity, but risk producing personalization. They seek electoral efficiency, but risk losing programmatic substance. They seek networks, but risk discouraging citizens who possess no networks.

The result is a vicious circle: the less genuine grassroots activism parties possess, the more they need notables; the more they rely on notables, the less they invest in building activist cultures; the weaker activist cultures become, the more citizens perceive parties as closed organizations. Research on Moroccan electoral campaigns illustrates precisely this evolution: the distinction once made between “activist parties” and “parties of notables” becomes blurred when organizations adopt mobilization techniques that appear electorally effective. TAFRA – “Faire campagne au Maroc”

Co-optation as a Problem of Internal Democracy

The question of co-optation is therefore also a question of internal party democracy. Who decides on nominations? Party activists? Local structures? National leaders? Regional officials? Informal negotiations? Financial power? The candidate’s presumed electoral capacity? These questions are essential because representative democracy depends partly on the democracy of political recruitment.

If citizens have no influence over candidate selection, they intervene only at the final stage of the process. Their power then consists of choosing among candidates whose selection has taken place elsewhere. This explains why electoral reform cannot be limited to the method by which seats are allocated or to campaign rules. It must also address the social production of political candidacies.

What Should Change?

The answer is not to eliminate notables. That would be unrealistic and even counterproductive. A genuinely rooted local personality can be an excellent representative. Social proximity is a democratic asset when it produces accountability and knowledge of the territory. The problem is the transformation of proximity capital into private political property.

Several reforms could help limit this drift. First, parties should strengthen the transparency of their nomination procedures. Second, party members should have greater participation in candidate selection. Third, political training mechanisms should allow new actors to enter electoral competition without having to possess substantial economic or family capital beforehand. Fourth, campaign expenditures should be subject to credible monitoring. Fifth, generational renewal should be understood not merely as a question of age but as a question of renewing the social trajectories through which political careers are produced. Finally, parliamentarians should be assessed according to their legislative activity, attendance, oversight work, interventions, and quality of representation, rather than simply according to their ability to maintain a local electoral network.

The Challenge of September 23, 2026

The elections of September 23, 2026 therefore constitute a test far deeper than a simple competition among political parties. With 7,288 candidates competing for 395 seats, the competition is quantitatively impressive. Ministry of the Interior of the Kingdom of Morocco – 2026 legislative elections But the number of candidates does not guarantee genuine diversity in political trajectories. The real question is how many candidates represent a genuine social, generational, and programmatic alternative.

This is where Morocco faces a historic choice. Either parties continue to privilege the candidate who is already known, wealthy, established, connected, and capable of mobilizing a network. Or they gradually begin constructing a new political class based on competence, integrity, activism, territorial rootedness, and accountability. The second choice is obviously more difficult. It is also far more important.

Conclusion: From the Notable to the Citizen, From the Network to the Institution

The co-optation of notables is one of the most revealing mechanisms of Moroccan electoral politics. It helps explain why institutional and social modernization has not necessarily produced an equivalent transformation in the mechanisms through which political representatives are recruited. The notable has not disappeared. The notable has modernized. He or she may be an entrepreneur, graduate, association leader, professional, local elected official, or heir to an old influential family. The notable may use social media, master modern communication techniques, and participate fully in economic globalization. Yet the notable can still perform an old function: serving as an intermediary between society and power.

This persistence is not necessarily incompatible with democracy. It becomes problematic when the personal network replaces collective organization, when family loyalty replaces citizenship, when money replaces the program, and when intermediary capacity becomes the principal criterion for selecting candidates. The central question is therefore not whether notables should be eliminated. It is how notability can be transformed into responsible representation rather than the private appropriation of political office.

This is one of the great challenges facing contemporary Moroccan politics. Morocco possesses modern institutions, a pluralistic Constitution, a diverse party system, advanced regionalization, and a society profoundly transformed by urbanization, education, mobility, and digitalization. But democracy cannot be consolidated solely through the modernization of formal institutions. It also requires transforming the social mechanisms through which representatives are produced. A living democracy must not merely give citizens the right to vote; it must enable them to believe that those for whom they vote have emerged from a political competition sufficiently open for their voice to genuinely matter.

This is why the co-optation of notables is directly related to the crisis of trust and abstention. When citizens feel that candidates are produced by parties, networks, or families to which they have no access, elections can lose their capacity to generate enthusiasm. Abstention then becomes a form of political withdrawal, sometimes silent, sometimes protest-oriented. Recent Afrobarometer data on Moroccan youth in 2026 are particularly concerning in this regard: only around one-third of this age group expresses trust in political parties, while young people are also less inclined than older generations to vote and to identify closely with a political party. Afrobarometer – Moroccan youth and political trust, 2026 This distance should not be reduced to youthful apathy. It should be understood as a signal being sent to political institutions.

The genuine modernization of Moroccan politics would therefore consist in moving progressively from a democracy of notables to a democracy of citizens, from intermediary politics to accountable politics, from clientelist logic to rights-based politics, and from representation based on the prior possession of a network to representation based on the ability to persuade and serve society. This is where one of the major challenges of contemporary Moroccan politics lies.

The elections of September 23, 2026 will obviously not resolve this question. But they will provide an opportunity to measure its magnitude. Because behind every ballot lies a deeper question than the choice of a party: does the citizen still believe that elections can transform his or her relationship with the state and improve everyday life? And behind every candidacy lies another, even more fundamental question: has the person asking for the vote become a representative because he or she had something to offer the community, or because he or she already possessed something to offer the party?

The answer to this question will partly determine the quality of Morocco’s political contract in the years ahead. Reinventing this contract therefore requires abandoning the idea that electoral effectiveness can permanently substitute for political legitimacy. A political party should not merely search for someone who can win a constituency; it should search for someone who can represent a society. A candidate should not merely be able to mobilize a network; he or she should be able to transform the expectations of that network into public policy. An elected representative should not merely remain accessible to constituents; he or she should contribute to making the state itself more accessible.

The genuine transcendence of notability is therefore not the disappearance of local elites. It is their democratic institutionalization. Morocco does not need fewer local elites; it needs local elites that are more accountable to citizens. It does not need less proximity; it needs proximity that does not become dependency. It does not need fewer networks; it needs networks that serve society rather than clienteles. It does not need fewer personalities; it needs personalities willing to become stronger than their networks and more accountable than their clienteles. Only under these conditions can politics move from the notable to the citizen, from the patron to the representative, from the client to the voter, and from the network to the institution. And it is precisely at this level that the genuine reinvention of Morocco’s political contract will take place.

References

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