CASABLANCA, Morocco (AP) — Morocco's King Mohammed VI on Tuesday named Urban Planning Minister Fatima Zahra Mansouri as the country's prime minister, making the 50-year-old attorney the first woman to hold the position in the Muslim kingdom.
Mansouri, who until her nomination also was the mayor of Marrakech, was tasked with forming a new government, the Royal Palace said in a statement. The announcement came four days after results of parliamentary elections were announced, with Mansouri’s centrist Authenticity and Modernity Party, or PAM, the highest vote-getter.
Mansouri, the second woman to serve as prime minister in the Arab world after Najla Bouden in Tunisia, is expected to build a coalition in coming days to form a government. Morocco’s electoral system makes it difficult for a single party to win an absolute majority.
Her government is expected to make billions of dollars in investments linked to the 2030 FIFA World Cup, while seeking to deliver on promises to fight inflation, raise wages and create jobs.
The Moroccan Constitution gives the king, who is the country’s highest authority, the power to appoint the prime minister, but he must choose from the party that wins the most seats in parliamentary elections. That was a change successfully pushed by Arab Spring protesters in 2011. Before that, the king could name the prime minister without any such restriction.
Mansouri joined PAM upon its creation in 2008 by Fouad Ali El Himma, a childhood friend and close adviser to the king. A law graduate from the University of Montpellier in France, Mansouri became one of the party’s top leaders in 2024. She twice served as mayor of Marrakech and was a member of parliament.
Mansouri is the daughter of the “pasha of Marrakech” Abderrahmane El Mansouri, a senior local official who was also Morocco’s ambassador to the United Arab Emirates. He headed Marrakech’s bar association and was a landowner.
Mansouri faced accusations of conflict of interest after a group of unidentified hackers claimed she had used her position for personal gain regarding land transactions in Marrakech. Mansouri denied the allegations, called them defamatory and took legal action.
One million of the 15.8 million registered voters in last week’s election voted for the Authenticity and Modernity Party, marking its first win since its creation. The election was the first since the Ceuta migration crisis last July and deadly youth-led protests last year.
After the royal nomination, the focus shifts to the coalition that will form the next government. PAM has expressed its willingness to work with all parties, but some, including the moderate Islamist Justice and Development party and left-wing Federation of Democratic Left, have announced they will remain in the opposition.
A woman casts her vote inside a polling station during the legislative elections in Rabat, Morocco, Wednesday, Sept. 23, 2026. (AP Photo/Mosa'ab Elshamy)
People walk next to the walls of the old Medina on Rabat, Morocco, Wednesday, Sept. 23, 2026. (AP Photo/Mosa'ab Elshamy)
MADRID (AP) — The 87-year-old woman at the center of the most high-profile eviction case in Spain in recent years will return home, her lawyer said Tuesday.
María del Carmen Abascal has been hospitalized since she was carried out on a stretcher from the apartment where she had lived for seven decades on Wednesday. Her case has drawn tens of thousands of people to the streets in recent days and led the government to present measures to address the country’s housing crisis. It remains to be seen if they go far enough to appease protesters.
Abascal, who has become widely known as simply “Maricarmen,” accepted a deal with the company that owns her apartment in the upscale Retiro neighborhood to return home as soon as she is discharged, her lawyer, Beatriz Duro, told The Associated Press.
“She is very happy,” said Duro.
The agreement limits her rent to 30% of her income, meaning she would not pay more than the 500 euros ($570) per month she paid previously.
The coalition led by Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez’s Socialists announced the new measures earlier Tuesday, after four days of intense protests centered around an encampment in Puerta del Sol, Madrid’s most iconic plaza.
The government's main decree extends protection against evictions for vulnerable Spaniards until 2030, regulates room rentals, imposes a new tax on seasonal rentals and bans “speculative real estate purchases by vulture funds” until 2028, Housing Minister Isabel Rodríguez told reporters at the presidential palace. It remains unclear how such funds are classified or how large the tax will be, as the decree's full text has yet to be released.
It also offers tax breaks to landlords who rent to low-income tenants, offers interest-free loans to families buying their first home, and protects public housing and promotes its construction, Rodríguez added.
“This has been thanks to the citizen movement. To Maricarmen. To the thousands of people in the streets,” Spain's Labor Minister Yolanda Díaz wrote on social media.
Rising costs and a housing shortage are pricing many Spaniards out of the housing market, despite strong economic growth in Europe’s fourth-largest economy. The protesters have been demanding stronger protections for tenants, measures to combat fraud and a ban on evictions when alternative housing is unavailable.
Parliament has 30 days to ratify the measures, and the government wants to expedite the process, calling for an extraordinary plenary session on housing for Friday. The government's coalition holds 152 of the chamber’s 350 seats, so it needs the support of smaller parties across the political spectrum to pass bills. Lack of parliamentary support in late July prevented the approval of similar measures.
The Madrid Tenants’ Union, the organizer of the protest, said it would remain cautious until it could review “the fine print” of the decree.
“The streets, this encampment and all the others currently across the country are engaging in a historic standoff with the government to push it to advance the right to housing through measures that had not been considered. And this continues,” said Alicia del Río, the union’s spokesperson.
The activists, who have called for more protests for the weekend across the country, will decide “in due time” whether to dismantle the encampment, a spokesperson told AP in a text message. The regional government, led by the conservative People’s Party, has asked the government delegate to clear the square within 48 hours before taking the matter to court. The protesters have remained peaceful.
“There are years when nothing happens, and weeks when history is made. This could be one of them,” the union said in a statement. “A historic window of opportunity has opened to reverse decades of the commodification of housing, and the coming days will be crucial. That is why we need to ramp up the pressure.”
Smaller encampments have sprung up in other cities, from Seville and Málaga in the south to Santiago de Compostela in the north and Palma de Mallorca in the tourist-friendly Balearic Islands, drawing international attention to a long-running issue.
Asked about the situation on Monday, Pope Leo XIV said it underscored the need for political leaders to find solutions to the housing crisis affecting many communities.
“Maybe we have to insist that political leaders, authorities find a solution to this, because it’s obviously increasing and oftentimes we only react in the moment of an emergency,” he said, after admitting that he was not familiar with the case. “But we have to try to see what the systemic cause of the problem is and how to help.”
Spain has had a housing law in place since 2023 that regulates rents and protects tenants, as well as allowing rent caps in high-demand areas at the request of local governments.
Spanish media reported that Abascal’s father first rented the property in 1956 and she continued as the tenant after her parents died, during which time there was a rent cap. The building changed ownership in 2018, and Abascal was offered the opportunity to buy the apartment but could not afford it, according to the union, which organized Saturday’s protest.
Urbagestión, an investment fund that later bought the unit, raised her monthly rent from 500 euros to 2,650 euros. It subsequently lowered the rent to 1,650 euros, which Abascal still could not afford on her pension, the union said.
The company didn't respond to emailed and phone requests for comment from AP.
Associated Press journalists Nicole Winfield in Rome and Joseph Wilson in Barcelona contributed.
Protesters camp during a protest at Sol Square following the eviction last Wednesday of 87-year-old Maricarmen as they demand stronger laws to protect renters in Madrid, Spain, Monday, Sept. 28, 2026. (AP Photo/Manu Fernandez)
Tourists take pictures of protesters camping during a protest at Sol Square following the eviction last Wednesday of 87-year-old Maricarmen as they demand stronger laws to protect renters in Madrid, Spain, Monday, Sept. 28, 2026. (AP Photo/Manu Fernandez)
Demonstrators camp during a protest at Sol Square following the eviction last Wednesday of 87-year-old Maricarmen as they demand stronger laws to protect renters in Madrid, Spain, Monday, Sept. 28, 2026. (AP Photo/Manu Fernandez)
Tourists gather in front of protesters camping during a protest at Sol Square following the eviction last Wednesday of 87-year-old Maricarmen as they demand stronger laws to protect renters in Madrid, Spain, Monday, Sept. 28, 2026. (AP Photo/Manu Fernandez)
Demonstrators camp during a protest at Sol Square following the eviction last Wednesday of 87-year-old Maricarmen as they demand stronger laws to protect renters in Madrid, Spain, Monday, Sept. 28, 2026. (AP Photo/Manu Fernandez)
