Ahmed Balafrej

أحمد بلافريج

5 September 1908 CE · 1326 AH – 14 April 1990 CE · 1410 AH

Moroccan politician and diplomat (1908–1990), born at Rabat to a family of Andalusian origin. A founder of the national movement, he took part in the Moroccan Action Committee of 1934 and in founding the Istiqlal Party, whose secretary-general he was (1944–1960); exiled to Corsica in 1944, he pleaded Morocco's independence before the United Nations General Assembly in 1953. After independence he was foreign minister (1956–1958), then prime minister while keeping the foreign ministry (May–December 1958), and in 1963 personal representative of Hassan II and foreign minister again.