While the spotlight was on the heated conflict between the National Rally of Independents (RNI) and the Authenticity and Modernity Party (PAM), and the candidacies favouring them to compete for the "World Cup government", Nizar Baraka, Secretary-General of the Independence Party, emerged at a party meeting in his electoral constituency of Larache on January 17, announcing the ambition and desire of the "Scale" party to win the upcoming 2026 elections, opening another front of conflict within the majority with the "Independents" who are clinging to a second term.
Sources within the RNI in the northern region "did not hide" their displeasure in calls with Hespress regarding the visit of the Minister of Equipment and Water to the province of Larache, especially after Omar Moro, president of the Tangier-Tetouan-Al Hoceima region, belonging to the RNI and a partner in the implementation of several projects whose visit was scheduled in the government official's activity, was not invited.
A source close to the Secretary-General of the Independence Party denied to the newspaper that the ministry deliberately failed to invite the regional president, placing the blame on the provincial authorities responsible for coordinating the visit. Other sources confirmed that Baraka limited his visit to projects supervised by his ministry and municipalities led by presidents belonging to his party in the region.
Baraka's move seemed "annoying" to the RNI and its leadership, who complained about it to party officials in the province of Larache and the region, considering that the Secretary-General of the Independence Party "should have limited himself to leading a party meeting instead of combining it with inaugurations and visits to sites and projects belonging to his ministry".
The same sources within the "Dove" party confirmed to Hespress that the matter was a "misunderstanding that was quickly overcome", assuring that they received instructions from the central leadership to "not delve further into the subject and to move past it to avoid further escalating the conflict".
However, these instructions quickly faded less than two weeks after the move that angered the RNI and its leadership, as the visit planned for the Minister of Equipment and Water, Nizar Baraka, last Saturday to "officially launch the project to link the Al Makhazen dam and the Dar Khroufa dam" was suddenly "postponed", after all stakeholders involved in the visit and the project were invited and then informed of the postponement on Friday evening.
Informed sources in the province confirmed to Hespress that the postponement of Baraka's visit to the important water connection project "has nothing to do with the political competition between the Independence Party and the RNI", stressing that the postponement is due to "purely technical reasons, related to the project being in its final testing phases and the final touches being made to start pumping water to the Dar Khroufa dam".
The sources indicated that the visit was expected to be attended by Ahmed El Bouari, Minister of Agriculture, Maritime Fisheries, Rural Development, and Water and Forests, who belongs to the RNI, and that sources suggested he might have had a "role" in the sudden postponement, especially since his ministry is supervising the implementation of their joint project.
After these two incidents, came the image of the ministers of the "Scale" party appearing united and cohesive during the monthly accountability session of the Head of Government in the House of Representatives yesterday, distancing themselves from other government ministers, perhaps representing a coded message about the widening gap between the components of the majority, since the early intentions of its leaders regarding the expected legislative elections were revealed. All eyes are now on Wednesday's meeting of the coalition party leaders, which is expected to be decisive in shaping the relationship between the coalition's components in the months leading up to the electoral contest, which has already begun to heat up, according to one of the leaders within the government coalition parties.
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