[Daily Nation (Kenya)] Morocco's King Mohammed VI on Tuesday named the head of the Islamist party that won last week's election as prime minister to lead talks on the formation of a coalition government, the palace said.Abdelilah Benkirane, head of the moderate Islamist Justice and Development Party (PJD), was summoned to the palace after results showed his party won the biggest block of votes in Friday's ballot.
It was the first election in the north African country since the monarch introduced constitutional reforms as the Arab Spring swept through the region.
The PJD won 107 of the 395 seats in parliament, a result that set the stage for it to become the first Islamist party at the head of a coalition government in Morocco.
An AFP journalist witnessed Benkirane taking the oath after a brief meeting with the king.
Under a new constitution adopted in July as the popular uprisings gripped other Arab states, the king had to choose a prime minister from the winning party instead of naming whoever he pleases, as in the past.
After meeting the monarch, "Benkirane will start talks with the parties that should make up the coalition," PJD parliamentary leader Lahcen Daoudi had told AFP Monday.
An Islamist party has never been allowed in government before, but the PJD has sworn allegiance to the monarchy.