Saad Deen El Otmani, former PJD Prime Minister

Born in 1956 in Inezgane, near Agadir, Saad El Otmani comes from one of the great families of Moroccan religious scholars (ulama, those who make Islamic law and issue fatwas). He is pursuing a double degree, in Islamic law and medicine, with a specialisation in psychiatry. 

He began his professional life as a physician, first a general practitioner, then a psychiatrist, before turning to politics in 1997. He will first be deputy of Inezgane for ten years, then of Mohammedia, a mandate he has held since 2007.

Originally a member of the Mouvement Populaire, he founded a dissident party that would be the ancestor of the PJD. In 1999, he became secretary general of the PJD, entered the first government Benkirane in 2012 and became Prime Minister in the following legislature, on April 5, 2017.

In contrast to his predecessor, this technocrat is distinguished by a charisma barely above that of an oyster. He also has the misfortune of having to manage the coronavirus crisis and his government is blamed for management and communication problems such as the ban on transport on the eve of Eid El Kebir. Nevertheless, he participated in “doing the job“, in a difficult context where Morocco avoided the worst and was cited as an example internationally. (I say “participated” because it is always difficult to separate government and Palace influence.)

Between the weariness of ten years of PJD and the impacts of the economic crisis, the PJD lost its majority and Saad El Otmani was replaced on 7 October 2021 by Aziz Akhannouch.

His positions, when he allows himself to take them, can be retrograde (such as his tweet linking monkeypox to homosexuality) or almost “liberal” for a member of the PJD, he is, for example, in favour of conditional legalization of abortion.