Morocco Appoints Fatima Ezzahra El Mansouri as First Female Prime Minister

RABAT: Morocco’s King Mohammed VI has appointed 50-year-old Fatima Ezzahra El Mansouri as prime minister. She is the first woman to hold the post in Morocco’s history and the third female prime minister in the Arab world.
The royal palace said in a statement on Tuesday that El Mansouri, the urban planning minister and mayor of Marrakech, has been tasked with forming a new government. In a televised address, she called her appointment “truly historic,” saying a woman is leading the government for the first time in the country’s history, a source of pride for all Moroccan women.
The appointment came four days after the results of last week’s elections were announced. The pro-monarchy Authenticity and Modernity Party (PAM) won the most votes, taking 97 of the 395 seats in the House of Representatives, but fell short of the 198 needed for a majority. Building a coalition will therefore be El Mansouri’s first task. PAM has said it is willing to work with all parties, while some, including the Justice and Development Party (PJD) and the Federation of the Democratic Left, have said they will sit in opposition. The new government will work on projects involving billions of dollars in investment ahead of the 2030 FIFA World Cup, to be hosted mainly by Morocco, Portugal and Spain.
Before her, Najla Bouden served as Tunisia’s prime minister from October 2021 to August 2023, while Sarah Zaafrani was appointed to the post in March 2025.
Born in Marrakech in 1976, El Mansouri studied law and earned a diploma in advanced studies from France’s University of Montpellier and a diploma in Anglo-Saxon business law from New York University. She became the city’s first female mayor in 2009 and was re-elected head of the municipal council in 2021. She also served multiple terms in the House of Representatives. In October 2021, she joined the national government as minister of national spatial planning, urban development, housing and urban policy. Her ministry’s remit included a direct housing support program, urban planning and regional development reforms, and the resettlement of victims of the 2023 Al Haouz earthquake.