Abdallah El Harif is a founder of the Democratic Way (Moroccan radical left party); he was its first national secretary and is now the deputy national secretary in charge of international relations. El Harif is an engineer who studied at Mines ParisTech. He was a member of a clandestine Moroccan organization that fought against the dictatorship of King Hassan II; for his role in the fight for democracy and socialism, El Harif was imprisoned for seventeen years.