Chalk up another victory for the Islamic Winter.

RABAT, Morocco (AP) — The leader of an Islamist party that has never before participated in Morocco’s governments was chosen by the king as the country’s new head of government on Tuesday.

The Justice and Development Party won the most votes Friday in a national election prompted by the pro-democracy demonstrations that swept this North African kingdom of 32 million earlier this year as part of the regionwide Arab Spring.

King Mohammed VI received Abdelilah Benkirane, the secretary general of the Justice and Development Party, in the mountain town of Midelt on Tuesday and named him head of government with the task of forming a governing coalition.

It would have been unthinkable just a year ago for a member of the opposition PJD to lead the government, but the Arab Spring movement forced the king to reform Morocco’s constitution and hold early elections.

Under the amended constitution, the prime minister is now a more powerful “head of government” and he must come from the party that won the most votes in the election. The PJD took 107 seats out of the 395 in Parliament, almost twice as many as the second-place finisher.