Mohamed El Hidaoui, President of the Safi Olympic, faces a new setback as the Constitutional Court revokes his mandate as deputy for Safi. The decision, based on a conviction related to bad checks, has retroactively invalidated El Hidaoui’s election to the House of Representatives, leading to the necessity of partial legislative elections in the Safi constituency.
The Constitutional Court, responding to a complaint filed by Thami Lmsekki of the Democratic and Social Movement (MDS), overturned El Hidaoui’s election on December 26, 2023, invoking Article 91 of the internal regulations of the Chamber of Representatives.
The Court referenced a final court judgment from July 2019, where El Hidaoui was sentenced by the Safi court to three months of suspended prison and a fine of 30,000 dirhams for issuing bad checks.
This legal saga traces back to the initial verdict, affirmed by the Court of Appeal on March 2, 2020, and subsequently upheld by the Court of Cassation on November 16, 2023.
With the finality of the conviction, El Hidaoui, who assumed the role of deputy on September 8, 2021, lost the right to participate in elections, rendering his parliamentary mandate null and void.
The Ministry of the Interior is now tasked with setting a date for partial legislative elections in the Safi constituency following the Constitutional Court’s decision.
Meanwhile, El Hidaoui and Radio Mars station host Adil El Omari, sentenced on August 11, 2023, in connection with the 2022 World Cup ticket scandal, are set to resume their appeal trial, facing the legal repercussions of their involvement in the high-profile case.
