Al-Badil al-Hadari Party

Political party in Morocco

The Party of the Civilizational Alternative (Arabic: حزب البديل الحضاري Hizb al-Badil al-Hadari; French: Parti de l'alternative civilisationnelle) is an Islamo-democratic political party in Morocco.

In the 2007 parliamentary elections, the party did not win any seats. The party was supposedly banned in early 2008, a few months after the 2007 elections, but as there are no written records of its prohibition, its status under Moroccan law is that it is merely frozen.

Structure

Secretary-General: Mustapha Moatassim
Deputy Secretary-General: Zahira Brini
Spokesman: Mohammed El Amine Ragala

History

Founded in 2002, the party was not recognised by the Moroccan Interior Ministry until 2005. The founding principles were freedom, equality, equity and democracy. They are mobilized for the same conviction: "a real alternative to the crisis in our country is possible."

Party dissolution

Following the arrests of senior party leader following a terrorism investigation ("Belliraj network"), Prime Minister Abbas El Fassi announced on February 20, 2008 that the party would be forcibly dissolved.

Both the secretary-general and the spokesman of the party were detained from February 2008 to April 14, 2011.^[1]

On April 18, 2012, Mustapha Moatassim introduced a request before Prime Minister Abdelilah Benkirane to lift the freeze of the party.^[2]

According to the Rabat Court of Appeal, there is actually no proof to confirm the dissolution decision, no trace in the Official Bulletin, no minutes of the Administrative Court, both required according to the Law on political parties.^[3]

References

^ Maghreb Arabe Presse, "Libération de Mustapha Mouatassim et 4 autres personnes condamnées dans le cadre de la cellule Belliraj Archived 2013-09-11 at the Wayback Machine", La Vie économique, 14 April 2011
^ Réda Mouhsine, "Entretien avec Mustapha Moatassim", Le Soir Échos, 21 May 2012
^ Y.B., "Des années après la clôture du dossier Belliraj :Résurrection du parti de Mustapha Mouatassim Archived 2012-10-22 at the Wayback Machine", Au Fait Maroc, 24 September 2012