RABAT, Sept. 23 (Xinhua) -- Polling stations opened on Wednesday morning across Morocco for legislative elections to renew the 395 members of the House of Representatives, parliament's lower house.
Voting is scheduled to run until 7:00 p.m. local time (1900 GMT), and approximately 15.8 million voters are expected to cast ballots.
Of the 395-seat House of Representatives, 305 are contested through local electoral constituencies, while the remaining 90 are allocated exclusively to women through regional lists.
According to the Interior Ministry, a total of 7,288 candidates registered nationwide, representing 28 political groups in the election.
Women account for 2,658 of the candidates registered for the election, representing 36.47 percent of the total, it added.
Morocco has a bicameral parliament consisting of the House of Representatives and the House of Councilors. The 2026 election will determine the members of Morocco's House of Representatives across the country's 12 regions. The election of the House of Councilors is scheduled for 2027.
The major parties in the election are the National Rally of Independents, the Authenticity and Modernity Party, and the Istiqlal Party, which formed the outgoing government.
They will compete alongside the Justice and Development Party, which led coalition governments following the 2011 and 2016 general elections, the Socialist Union of Popular Forces, the Popular Movement, and the Party of Progress and Socialism.
Under the constitution, Morocco's king appoints the prime minister from the party that wins the most seats, which then forms a government. ■