National Union of Popular Forces

(NUPF; al Ittihad al-Watani li al-Quwwat al-Shaabiyya), a political party in Morocco that includes radical elements of the middle and petite bourgeoisie, students, members of the intelligentsia, and some workers and peasants. The NUPF originated in January 1959, when the Istiqlal Party’s left wing seceded to form the National Confederation of the Istiqlal Party, renamed the National Union of Popular Forces in September 1959. The program of the NUPF, adopted at its Second Congress in 1962, provides for the nationalization of the main branches of the economy, the democratization of the existing system, and a noncapitalist path of development for the country. It has been an opposition party since 1960. In 1970 the NUPF and the Istiqlal Party formed the National Front, which proposed a program of democratic reforms; the National Front disintegrated in 1972. In the summer of 1972 the Rabat faction left the NUPF, and in September 1974 it formed the Socialist Union of Popular Forces.