Aziz Akhannouch

He was born on 16 August 1961. The English article's infobox gives his birthplace as Tafraout in southern Morocco, while its text specifies the village of Aguerd Oudad near Tafraout; the Arabic article gives Tafraout and says he was raised in Casablanca. He comes from the Amazigh (Berber) Ammeln tribe of the Souss. His father, Ahmed Oulhaj Akhannouch (1909–1994), was a nationalist, resistance figure and businessman. His mother and sister survived the 1960 Agadir earthquake, in which ten members of his family died. He completed his studies abroad and took a degree in administrative management from the University of Sherbrooke in Canada in 1986. ^{1 2 3}

The Urdu stub gives a different birth date, 31 December 1961, citing TelQuel; the museum follows the 16 August date given by the English and Arabic articles and by Wikidata, and records the birth as debated. ⁴

After returning to Morocco he took over the Akwa Group, a holding company controlling dozens of firms active above all in fuel distribution, telecommunications and services; he inherited the group from his father. Forbes estimated his net worth at $1.4 billion in November 2013. He has sat on the boards of the Bank of Africa (formerly BMCE) and of Bank Al-Maghrib, and headed the Moroccan petroleum companies' grouping. ^{1 2}

He was elected president of the Souss-Massa-Drâa regional council (2003–2007). On 15 October 2007 he became minister of agriculture and fisheries, a portfolio he held, later expanded to rural development, water and forests, until 10 September 2021, serving under prime ministers Abbas El Fassi, Abdelilah Benkirane and Saadeddine Othmani. On 29 October 2016 he was elected leader of the National Rally of Independents (RNI), succeeding Salaheddine Mezouar. ^{1 2}

In the general election of 2021 his party placed first, winning 102 of 395 seats, while the governing Justice and Development Party lost most of its seats. On 10 September 2021 King Mohammed VI appointed him prime minister, succeeding Saadeddine Othmani, and tasked him with forming a government; he announced a coalition with the PAM and Istiqlal parties on 22 September and took office on 7 October 2021. ¹

His government was marked by inflation and rising prices, by protest campaigns against him — including the "#Degage_Akhannouch" ("Akhannouch out") campaign — and by strained relations with the press, as the sources report them; he also led the government's response to the September 2023 Marrakesh earthquake. His party leadership ended on 7 February 2026, and his premiership on 29 September 2026, when Fatima Ezzahra El Mansouri succeeded him. He has also served as mayor of Agadir from September 2021. ^{1 2}

He is married to the businesswoman Salwa Idrissi, who owns a company active in shopping malls and holds Moroccan franchises for international brands. As agriculture minister he twice hosted King Mohammed VI and his family for Ramadan iftar, in 2013 and 2016. In November 2022 a government spokesperson announced that he had tested positive for COVID-19. ¹

The sources used here state no religion and no school of thought for Akhannouch personally. Wikidata records Islam in general, without a branch, and the Urdu article files him by category under Moroccan Muslims. The museum therefore records his faith as unknown: a general structured value and a category filing do not name a school, and two independent sources naming one would be required. ^{3 4}

• The defined source entities cited above, recorded in data/source/.
• Revisions of this article must be dated, and must name the source that changed each fact.