Rabat (AFP) – More than a month after its launch, an unprecedented boycott campaign in Morocco against three well-known brands has revived criticism against links between the country’s business and political elite.
Spreading like wildfire across social media, the campaign is targeting Afriquia service stations, Sidi Ali water and Danone milk — leaders in their sectors — and calling for a drop in prices.
Despite brand communication efforts to curb the campaign, AFP saw its popularity in cafes, shops and deserted Afriquia petrol stations in several Moroccan cities.
Some 57 percent of Moroccans are actively engaged in the boycott, according to a survey of 3,575 mostly middle class Moroccans published this week in the country’s L’Economiste newspaper.
The Afriquia group belongs to billionaire Aziz Akhannouch, the richest man in Morocco, minister of agriculture since 2007 and head of the National Rally of Independents (NRI) technocrat political party.
The boycott carries “a symbolic message from the middle…
