17 June 2011

Losers all around in French Muslim council election

.... The curious voting method used, which allocates electoral college delegates to each federation according to the total floor space of its mosques around the country, was the reason Moussaoui’s rivals gave for the boycott.

The broader reason for the boycott is that French Muslims of Moroccan origin, although fewer than those with an .... Algerian background, are generally more devout and — with encouragement from Rabat and Moussaoui’s RMF — are building more mosques.

That extra floor space means more voting delegates for the RMF and an automatic majority for the Moroccans — something Algiers wants to avoid. The UOIF, with no single sponsor abroad, has long opposed what it calls this foreign interference. [Reuters Blogs - FaithWorld] Read more