Al Ittihad Al Ichtiraki: USFP Leader, Youssoufi, resigns from party and politics

Leader of the Socialist Union of Popular Forces (USFP/in government) and former prime minister, Abderrahmane Youssoufi, resigned from his party and from political life.

Youssoufi said he decided to withdraw from politics and from the USFP and any position in the party after last September 12 local polls, according to a letter he sent Monday to the members of the party's political bureau, published by the USFP daily "Al Ittihad Al Ichtiraki."

El Youssoufi said he is ready "to hold, as soon as possible, a meeting with the party's political bureau in charge of financial management and of the party's assets," and wished full success to the party's leaders and militants, for the supreme interest of the nation. Youssoufi served from March 1998 to October 2002 prime minister at Morocco's first alternation government.