A total of 20,458 women out of 130,223 applications are candidates in Morocco’s local elections scheduled for June 12, the Moroccan authorities, who hailed the move as a record since the country’s first communal elections in May 1960, said.

Against 4.8 per cent of women in 2003 communal, those of 2009, the eighth in Morocco, showed a record of 15.7 percent divided between “open» constituencies with 5,178 candidates and the constituencies reserved for women (15,280), 55.6 percent of whom have a secondary or higher education, it is said in Rabat.

The campaign for the municipal elections began Saturday with 1,503 communes and 27,795 seats at stake, 12 percent of which are for women.

The campaign, which is due to end on June 11, promises a confrontation between thirty parties in addition to independent candidates whereas only one political party of the extreme left (the Democratic Way) has boycotted the elections, the eighth of the kind in independent Morocco since the May 1960 municipal elections.

The seats are located in 221 urban and 1,282 rural constituencies, with uni-nominal and majority voting.

For municipalities with fewer than 35,000 inhabitants, the number of 1,411, advisors will be elected from a single ballot, while the majority will be used in 92 municipalities with more than 35,000 inhabitants.

The electorate consists of 13.3 million voters after the cancellation of more than 3 million former registered and the registration of 1.6 million new ones.

The parties will receive airtime according to their representation in both legislative chambers of the Moroccan House.

A random drawing was held for the classification of different interventions and the presentation of meetings on both channels of the Moroccan state-owned televisions and radios.

Source African Press Agency

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