This paper will contribute to the overall theme of the panel by analyzing the politics around the municipal elections in Morocco, due to be held in June 2009. The author plans to conduct field research in a rural area during the campaign and during the elections, and observe ‘local politics’ and the interplay between formal and informal institutions in action. The paper would build on the author’s recent doctoral research on local governance in Morocco which included in-depth interviews with local councillors. The paper will first provide some background about past municipal elections in Morocco and recent reforms with regard to decentralized local authorities and elections laws. It will also briefly review the available literature on local politics and the interaction between formal and informal institutions, both from a theoretical as well as Morocco-specific perspective (including Herzenni (2000), Venema and Mguild (2002), and Graefe (2005)). The study by Hamimaz (2003) in particular is useful in proposing the notion of the “tribal” syndrome in explaining how local election campaigns in Morocco have contributed to intra and inter-tribal conflicts. The main part of the paper will be devoted to an analysis of the election campaign itself, which includes the communication used by candidates, the role of political parties at the local level, the meaning of party membership and programs for local councillors and candidates, and their interaction with voters and tribal (informal) institutions. Given that these elections for the first time include a quota for female councillors, the paper will examine the proposed themes from a gender perspective as well; i.e. the socio-economic background of female candidates, whether their campaigns highlight women’s issues in particular, how their communication strategies differ from those of men, how they are selected by their communities to stand for elections, and what formal and informal institutions constrain or facilitate their campaigns, among others. The conclusion will summarize the main findings and explore their implications with regard to the decentralisation process as well as the capacity-building programs for candidates and politicians provided by local NGOs and donors in the context of democracy promotion in Morocco.