With the appointment of Fatima Zahraa Mansouri, by King Mohammed VI, as head of government, Morocco opens a new page in its history, considering the leader of the Authenticity and Modernity Party the first woman in the history of the Kingdom to hold the position. The political path of the “Pasha’s Daughter” began from the presidency of the Marrakesh City Council to the government, where she assumed the housing and reconstruction portfolio, before later reaching the leadership of the party that topped the results of the recent legislative elections.

Published on: 09/29/2026 - 17:57 Last updated: 09/30/2026 - 14:32

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From the presidency of the Marrakesh City Council, through the leadership of the Authenticity and Modernity Party, to the presidency of the government, Fatima Zahraa Al-Mansouri has traveled a political path in nearly two decades that has made her one of the most prominent female faces in the Moroccan political scene. Today, after her party topped the legislative elections that took place on September 23, 2026, the “Pasha’s daughter” returned to the forefront of discussion following her appointment by King Mohammed VI as the first female head of government in the history of Morocco.

Fatima Zahraa Mansouri was born in Marrakesh in 1976, and grew up in a family belonging to the city's local elite. Her father, Abdel Rahman Al Mansouri, was a lawyer and Pasha of Marrakesh and then Moroccan ambassador to the United Arab Emirates. She studied in French educational institutions in Marrakesh, then joined Mohammed V University in Rabat, before continuing to study law at the French University of Montpellier, then practicing law and managing her father’s office.

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In addition to her work as a lawyer, she became involved in collective work, as she assumed the presidency of the French Law Students Association, and the (Monia) Association, which is concerned with heritage preservation.

Fatima Zahraa Al Mansouri did not enter politics through a traditional portal. In 2007, she was offered to help found the Marrakesh branch of the “For All Democrats” movement, of which Fouad Ali El Himma, the current advisor to King Mohammed VI, was one of its most prominent founders. In 2008, the movement transformed into the Authenticity and Modernity Party.

The first woman to head the Marrakesh City Council

In June 2009, Al-Mansouri achieved her first major political breakthrough. She was elected President of the Marrakesh City Council, after obtaining 54 votes compared to 36 for her competitor, Omar Jazouli, becoming the first woman to assume the presidency of the city council, and the second woman to preside over the council of a major Moroccan city after Asmaa Chaabi in Essaouira.

Her rise was rapid, as she was thirty-three when she reached the presidency of the city. However, on the evening of the announcement of her election results in 2009, her father died. She later said that serving Marrakesh became for her a way to continue the values ​​left by her father.

During her first term, Al Mansouri built her image on field presence and the ability to deal with local files. The press, which followed her path at the time, presented her as a politician capable of moving between the city’s official events and the streets of its popular neighborhoods, in an attempt to establish the image of a local official close to the population.

But her first experience as president of Marrakesh ended in 2015, when the Authenticity and Modernity Party lost the presidency of the council to the Justice and Development Party.

From Marrakesh to the heart of PAM

The loss of the city's leadership did not stop her rise within the Authenticity and Modernity Party. Since 2016, she has assumed the presidency of the party’s National Council, a position that kept her at the heart of the internal balances of the PAM during periods in which the General Secretariat was held by Elias Al-Ammari, Hakim Benchemache, and Abdel Latif Wehbe.

Testimonies from within the party at that stage describe her as a person inclined to listen and agree, which helped her maintain her position within the party establishment despite the change in leadership.

At the party's fourth national conference in 2020, she was re-elected to head the National Council. At that conference, her image emerged again as an influential figure within the party, although she was less present at the forefront of internal conflicts than some other leaders.

In February 2024, the party leadership structure itself changed. Instead of electing a single Secretary-General, the Fifth National Congress chose a collective tripartite leadership that included Fatima Al-Zahraa Al-Mansouri, Mohamed Al-Mahdi Bensaïd, and Salah Al-Din Abu Al-Ghali. Al-Mansouri was chosen as the coordinator of this leadership before official institutions.

Al-Mansouri was keen to stress that she is not the party's "Secretary General", but rather a coordinator of collective leadership, in a model that the party said aims to limit the personalization of political and party work.

Return to Marrakesh and then enter the government

In September 2021, Mansouri returned to the presidency of the Marrakesh City Council after the Authenticity and Modernity Party won first place in the city's communal elections. She was elected President of the Council unanimously, receiving 79 votes.

A few weeks later, on October 7, 2021, she entered government for the first time, when King Mohammed VI appointed her Minister of National Territorial Preparation, Reconstruction, Housing and City Policy in the government of Aziz Akhannouch. Since then, it has combined central government responsibility with the presidency of the Marrakesh Community.

In the ministry, her name was associated in particular with housing policies, combating shantytowns, and housing assistance programs, in addition to the files of reconstruction and reorganization of the urban space. As Morocco prepares to host the 2030 World Cup alongside Spain and Portugal, the file of rehabilitating cities and improving the urban landscape has become one of the prominent files in the ministry’s work.

Tsultant estate controversy

However, her period in office did not pass without bumps, as a major controversy arose after the leak of a contract for the sale of a vast property around Marrakesh bearing the signature of Al-Mansouri, in her capacity as one of the heirs alongside her two brothers. It is a contract that concerns agricultural land in the Tsultant region with an area exceeding 66 hectares, and its value was estimated at more than 266 million dirhams (about 27 million dollars).

Criticism targeted Al-Mansouri, given that at the time of signing the contract (October 2023) she held two direct official positions related to the matter: Mayor of the city of Marrakesh and Minister of National Territorial Planning and Development, which led to voices speaking about the possibility of a conflict of interest, exploitation of her job position, and influence on planning decisions.

In response to what she described as “tendentious leaks,” Al-Mansouri then issued a statement in which she confirmed that the lands in question did not fall within state or group property, explaining that the matter related to private property that had been inherited within the Al-Mansouri family since 1978, following the death of its original owner, Si Abdul Rahman Al-Mansouri.

Representation of women

Al-Mansouri's rise was not separate from the position of women within the Authenticity and Modernity Party. From its beginnings, it presented itself as part of a new generation of politicians, and defended a political approach based on pragmatism and going beyond the traditional polarization between the right and the left.

But her political presence does not negate the fact that women’s representation in party and elected institutions has remained a subject of debate in Morocco. Therefore, her arrival to the presidency of Marrakesh and then to the leadership of a political party and ministry gained symbolic importance, without this making her path separate from the political and party balances that govern the Moroccan scene.

Throughout her political career within the party establishment, Al-Mansouri tried to paint an image of a political official who did not seek to appear at the forefront, even though she gradually accumulated positions of influence, from the presidency of Marrakesh to the National Council of the party, then to the government, all the way to the leadership of the PAM within the collective leadership.

Today, this process enters a new phase with her appointment as Prime Minister.

When her party topped the last legislative elections by winning 97 seats, Al-Mansouri had confirmed that the responsibility for forming the next government would be determined according to the constitutional and political path that the next stage would witness.

During the day after the elections, she said that the party is open to various political formations regarding alliances, and does not set prior “red lines,” provided that alliances are discussed within the party’s institutions.

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