Morocco names first woman to lead its government

When Fatima Ezzahra El-Mansouri stood before King Mohammed VI on Tuesday, September 29, she carried with her the weight of a first. The Moroccan King had just appointed her Head of Government, making her the first woman in the country’s history to hold the post. For El-Mansouri, a lawyer and senior member of the Authenticity and Modernity Party (PAM), the moment was personal as well as political.

“This is a historic moment for our country,” she said afterward, adding that “this is the first time that a woman has been appointed to head a government, which is a source of pride for me and for all the women of the country.”

Her words pointed to the citizens she now answers to. “We are fully aware of the importance of this stage and of the high expectations of citizens, particularly young people,” she said, promising that “we will draw up a program offering realistic and concrete solutions.” She also pledged to “work towards proposing a government that lives up to the expectations of His Majesty the King and all citizens,” describing her meeting with the King as a chance to receive “His Majesty the King’s High Guidelines for managing the coming phase.”

The appointment followed parliamentary elections in which PAM won 97 of the 395 seats in the House of Representatives, the largest number secured by any party. Under Morocco’s constitutional system, the King appoints the Head of Government from the party that wins the most seats, and El-Mansouri must now form a coalition government. Her task comes as Morocco prepares major investments tied to the 2030 FIFA World Cup while facing economic and social pressures, including concerns over inflation, employment and wages. She brings experience to the job, having previously served as housing minister and as mayor of Marrakech.

Her rise places her among a small but growing group of women leading African governments. Namibia’s President Netumbo Nandi-Ndaitwah became her country’s first woman president in 2025. Tanzania has been led by President Samia Suluhu Hassan since 2021. Judith Suminwa became prime minister of the Democratic Republic of Congo in 2024, and Tunisia appointed Sara Zaafrani as prime minister in 2025.

Morocco’s appointment is therefore not the first time a woman has led an African government, but it is a historic first for the country itself, and it adds another prominent example to the continent’s evolving record of women in executive political leadership.

The broader picture remains uneven. A 2025 analysis by the Center for Strategic and International Studies noted that Africa had had 24 female heads of state or government across 18 countries, yet only two women had been directly elected by voters to the presidency at that point: Liberia’s Ellen Johnson Sirleaf and Namibia’s Netumbo Nandi-Ndaitwah. Women’s representation in legislatures has advanced more quickly than their presence at the very top of executive power.

South Africa illustrates that gap. Women currently hold about 45% of the seats in the National Assembly, placing the country among Africa’s examples of relatively high female parliamentary representation. The African National Congress also has a constitutional requirement that at least 50% of its elected structures should be women. Yet no woman has been elected president since the end of apartheid, and the question of whether that will change remains open. The country has had women in senior positions, including the Speaker of the National Assembly, but the Constitution provides that the National Assembly elects either a woman or a man as president, so there is no guarantee the next president will be a woman.

Beyond Africa, the rise of women to the highest political offices in the Middle East and North Africa has been more recent. Benazir Bhutto broke a major barrier in 1988 when she became Pakistan’s first woman prime minister and the first woman to lead a Muslim-majority country. Five years later, in 1993, Tansu Çiller became Türkiye’s first woman prime minister. Now Morocco has joined that history.

For the women and young citizens El-Mansouri addressed, the appointment is more than a change of personnel. It is a new chapter in Africa’s political story, and one whose consequences will unfold in the daily lives of Moroccans in the years ahead.