Morocco Football Chief Fouzi Lekjaa’s Party Wins Election, Fuels PM Talk

Fouzi Lekjaa, president of the Royal Moroccan Football Federation (FRMF) since 2014 and first vice-president of the Confederation of African Football (CAF) since 2025, has emerged as a possible contender for Morocco’s premiership after the Authenticity and Modernity Party (PAM) he joined months ago topped provisional results in the country’s September 23, 2026, parliamentary election. Interior Minister Abdelouafi Laftit announced the provisional count showing PAM winning 97 of the 395 seats in the House of Representatives, according to Reuters and Bloomberg, both reporting on September 24, 2026.

The result marks the first parliamentary election in five years and puts football’s most powerful administrator in Morocco at the center of the country’s next government-formation talks. Lekjaa, who is also Morocco’s minister delegate for the budget, joined PAM’s political bureau only weeks before the vote, a move Reuters described as central to the party’s surge from second place in the outgoing coalition to first place in the new count.

Direct Answer: What Happened and Why It Matters

PAM finished first in Morocco’s September 23, 2026, parliamentary election with 97 seats, up from 87 in 2021, according to provisional results announced by Interior Minister Abdelouafi Laftit and reported by Reuters and Bloomberg on September 24, 2026. The National Rally of Independents (RNI), the outgoing coalition’s leading party, fell behind in the same tally. Reuters attributed part of PAM’s rise to the recruitment of Fouzi Lekjaa, the sitting FRMF president and a two-time government budget manager, who joined the party weeks before polling day and became its most visible campaign figure — even though he was not himself a candidate.

Who Is Fouzi Lekjaa

Lekjaa, born July 23, 1970, has led the Royal Moroccan Football Federation since 2014, a tenure that has coincided with Morocco’s rise as one of African football’s dominant powers on and off the pitch. He became CAF’s first vice-president in 2025 and has simultaneously served in Moroccan government roles, most recently as minister delegate in charge of the budget. The Italian newspaper Il Foglio, in a September 23, 2026, profile, called him “the face of the PAM campaign” despite his not running for a parliamentary seat himself, noting his dual identity as both a senior civil servant and the country’s top football administrator.

Under Lekjaa’s FRMF presidency, Morocco has hosted the 2025 Africa Cup of Nations and is one of the co-hosts, alongside Spain and Portugal, of the 2030 FIFA World Cup, with the federation overseeing major stadium and infrastructure investment tied to that bid. H24info reported that PAM formally confirmed Lekjaa’s party membership on July 25, 2026, less than two months before the vote — a timeline that Morocco World News and CRBC News both independently described as “less than three months” before the September 23 election.

Lekjaa’s football-to-politics profile has drawn comparisons elsewhere in the football world to executives who have leveraged sporting institutions into public office, though his case is unusual in scale: he heads both his country’s football federation and a continental confederation vice-presidency while now sitting at the top of the largest bloc in a national parliament.

The Election Numbers

How we know: figures are from provisional results announced by Interior Minister Abdelouafi Laftit and reported by Reuters and Bloomberg on September 24, 2026.

Named Sources and Direct Quotes

Reuters, in its September 24, 2026, report, wrote that PAM’s rise to the top spot came after it was “bolstered by the recruitment of Fouzi Lekjaa, Morocco’s football federation chief and two-time government budget manager, who joined weeks before the vote.” The news agency also linked the election outcome to broader “youth anger over inequality” among Moroccan voters and reported low turnout in the vote.

Lekjaa himself has publicly downplayed ambitions for the country’s top government post. Speaking before the election, as reported by Morocco World News on September 15, 2026, and citing Jeune Afrique, Lekjaa said: “Head of the government? I have never thought about it.” He added that his immediate priority was completing his current mandate, saying, “I have a mission that ends on September 23.”

On the question of mixing football leadership with political office, Lekjaa told Le360 in comments published September 14, 2026: “What is prohibited in football is political interference in sport — we do not want a minister or prime minister, from any political party, interfering in the scheduling of a match, the appointment of a referee or the result of a game. That is what is prohibited. There is nothing, however, that prevents someone holding a position in football from engaging in politics.” He also said the question of a conflict between his roles “does not arise for the time being,” noting he had already served in government without incident while running the federation.

On the campaign trail, Lekjaa framed PAM’s platform around economic relief, telling supporters at a rally, as reported by Kuwait Times and Africanews: “We want to use all legal means to bring living standards back to a normal level, as they were before,” and “We want to make young people a force capable of bringing added value rather than being left behind.”

Bloomberg’s coverage, cited in the days following the vote, described the provisional results as putting Lekjaa “on track for the prime minister post if he chooses to pursue it” — a framing that Morocco World News revisited in a September 24, 2026, analysis headlined “Will Lekjaa Lead Morocco’s Next Government After PAM Election Victory? If Not Him, Who?”

Football and Politics: No Clean Separation

None of the sources reviewed for this article report a formal FRMF statement objecting to Lekjaa’s political rise, nor any independent conflict-of-interest ruling against him. But the overlap is unusual by international standards: FIFA and CAF statutes generally emphasize the independence of national football associations from government interference, and Lekjaa’s own comments to Le360 show he is aware of that tension, drawing a distinction between holding political office and using political power to interfere in football operations such as referee appointments or match scheduling.

Il Foglio’s September 23, 2026, profile — headlined “Infantino’s man who could win the elections in Morocco,” a reference to FIFA president Gianni Infantino — underscored how closely Lekjaa’s football-world standing is now tied to his political one. The same profile noted his dual role as budget minister since 2021 and CAF first vice-president since 2025, describing him as someone who has “not been a candidate” for PAM in the traditional sense but functioned as its most prominent public face.

North Africa Post reported separately, in comments from September 22, 2026, that Lekjaa addressed Morocco’s standing within CAF’s governance structure directly, saying: “Morocco does not control key bodies,” while noting the country does not lead major CAF committees responsible for competitions or disciplinary matters, aside from finance. The remark came as he sought to frame Morocco’s football rise as built on sporting results rather than institutional influence — a message that doubled as a defense against suggestions his federation role gave PAM an unfair political advantage.

Background: Morocco’s Football Rise Under Lekjaa

Lekjaa’s eleven-plus years running the FRMF have overlapped with a period of sustained investment in Moroccan football, including new training academies, the Mohammed VI Football Complex, and the country’s push to co-host the 2030 World Cup alongside Spain and Portugal — a bid that has required Morocco to commit to stadium construction and infrastructure upgrades across multiple host cities. Morocco also hosted the delayed 2025 Africa Cup of Nations, a tournament staged under Lekjaa’s federation leadership.

That track record is central to how PAM has marketed him to voters: as a technocrat who delivers concrete results, translated from sports infrastructure to economic promises. Reuters noted that the two largest outgoing parties, RNI and PAM, had each pledged to create roughly 1 million jobs over the next five-year term, alongside promises to improve housing, wages and hospitals — commitments made against a backdrop of what Reuters described as youth anger over inequality and low voter turnout on election day.

What Happens Next

With provisional results in hand, attention now shifts to coalition-building. Under Morocco’s parliamentary system, King Mohammed VI typically appoints a prime minister from the party that wins the most seats, meaning PAM’s first-place finish puts pressure on the party to identify a premiership candidate — with Lekjaa the name most frequently floated despite his own public reluctance. Morocco World News’s September 24, 2026, analysis framed the succession question as unresolved, asking directly whether Lekjaa would take the post “if not him, who?”

Lekjaa has separately indicated he intends to continue pursuing Morocco’s football interests regardless of the political outcome, including the country’s ongoing AFCON hosting ambitions and its role in the 2030 World Cup preparations. Whether he ultimately steps into the premiership or remains focused on football administration, his simultaneous grip on Morocco’s most prominent sporting institution and now its largest parliamentary bloc represents an unusual concentration of sport and state power that will likely draw continued scrutiny from both political analysts and international football governance bodies as coalition talks proceed in the coming weeks.

For now, no final government has been formed, and Lekjaa has made no announcement accepting or seeking the premiership. According to Reuters’ September 24, 2026, report, the immediate next step is formal certification of the results and the start of coalition negotiations among Morocco’s political parties. Additional context on Lekjaa’s rise and his football-to-politics balancing act was detailed in Morocco World News’ analysis published the same day, while his own remarks on separating football administration from political interference were first reported by Le360 on September 14, 2026.

Limitations of This Report

This article covers provisional election results and Lekjaa’s public statements as reported through September 24-25, 2026. Final, certified parliamentary results, any formal coalition agreement, and any decision by Lekjaa on a premiership bid had not been announced as of publication. No FRMF, CAF, or FIFA statement specifically addressing his political rise was identified in available reporting.

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Sources

• Reuters’ September 24, 2026, report — reuters.com
• Morocco World News’ analysis published the same day — moroccoworldnews.com
• Le360 on September 14, 2026 — en.le360.ma
• Fouzi Lekjaa and the PAM win in Morocco with the 2030 … — democrata.es
• Moroccan centrist party tops parliament vote after boost from football chief — devdiscourse.com