RABAT, Morocco — Five years after the Arab Spring and its accompanying wave of protests in Morocco, the kingdom will hold parliamentary elections on Oct. 7. Nabila Mounib, the secretary-general of the United Socialist Party (PSU) and the first woman to be elected as a party leader in Morocco, is running as part of the Democratic Left Federation (DLF), an alliance of three leftist parties — the PSU, the Democratic Socialist Vanguard Party and the National Ittihadi Congress.

The DLF presents itself as an alternative to the two main contenders, the Justice and Development Party (JDP), the Islamist ruling party, and the Authenticity and Modernity Party (PAM), an anti-Islamist party founded in 2008 by Fouad Ali El Himma, a friend and adviser of King Mohammed VI. Among the 28 parties contesting the elections, the DLF is the only one proposing a separation of powers and establishment of a parliamentary monarchy.

Mounib, a biology and endocrinology professor with a long history of political activism, campaigned in 2011 for greater freedom and democracy and supported the February 20 movement. She boycotted the 2011 constitutional referendum and early parliamentary elections (moved forward in response to street protests) proposed by Mohammed, arguing that the new constitution would create a “sham democracy."

The 2011 constitution broadened the powers of government and parliament, but did not decidedly reduce the powers of the monarchy, leading to a two-headed system that made it difficult to differentiate between measures decided by the king and those approved by the government.