It is eleven o’clock on Saturday/Sunday night, and the National Council of the Istiqlal Party has not yet held its expected session to elect the Secretary-General and members of the Executive Committee. The parties within the party are engaged in long and difficult consultations in order to agree on the names that each party wants to be present in the lineup that Includes 34 names.
According to information obtained by the Hespress electronic newspaper, consultations are still ongoing between the main parties in the party, led by Secretary-General Nizar Baraka, to limit the list of members of the Executive Committee that will be presented to the National Council.
According to the information obtained by the newspaper from the spot, the negotiations entered the decisive stage more than four hours after the end of the conference was announced, and the independent parties are close to finalizing the list after the negotiations witnessed reservations about some of the proposed names.
The sources recorded that the Baraka movement expressed its reservations about the names of two or three members of the outgoing Executive Committee, whom Ould Rachid is clinging to, while Al-Kihal is moving towards reserving a seat for himself in the Executive Committee with Adel Ben Hamza and Abdullah Al-Bakali.
Hespress obtained a list of names that were put forward for discussion and negotiation between the various factions in the party, and the sources suggested that some limited changes would be made in the difficult negotiations.
The list of names of the members of the Executive Committee, which represented an initial basis for negotiation between members of the Istiqlal Party, included: Mustafa Al-Taj, Othman Al-Tarmounia, Mansour Lambarki and Ayoub Mashmoum in the youth quota, in addition to Khadija Al-Zoumi, Zainab Qiuh, Maryam Maa Al-Ainin, Naima Benyahia, Nahid Hamtami, and Awatef Hayar, within the percentage allocated for women.
The list also included the names of Nour al-Din Madyan and Muhammad Saud, who were the subject of an objection by the Baraka Movement, in addition to Abdul Salam al-Labbar, Abdul Wahid al-Ansari, Omar Hujaira, Aziz al-Hilali, Abdul-Jabbar al-Rashidi, and Fouad al-Qadiri.
The list of members of the Executive Committee being negotiated also included Rahal Al-Makkawi, Hamdi Ould Rachid, Mohamed Ould Rachid, Al-Naam Mayara, Abdel Samad Qiuh, and Abdel Majeed Al-Fassi, as well as Abdel Latif Mazouz, Riad Mazour, Abdelkader Al-Kihal, Abdallah Al-Bakali, Adel Benhamza, Moulay Ahmed Afilal, Mohamed Zidouh, Hisham Saanan, and Mustafa Hanin. Hassan Abdel Khalek, former Moroccan ambassador to Algeria.
A state of anticipation prevails in the conference regarding the outcomes of the negotiations that are nearing their end, as it is expected that the voting process on the Secretary-General and the Executive Committee will pass smoothly and quickly if the agreement is completed between the different brothers.