weighing morocco

8/6/2019 Weighing Morocco

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Weighing Morocco's New Constitution

by Paul Silverstein | published July 5, 2011

Middle East Report

2011 has been a year of unprecedented political tumult in Morocco. As neighboring North African

regimes collapsed under the weight of popular pressure, demonstrators have convened in Moroccan

cities as well, naming their uprising after the day of their largest initial gathering, February 20, and

calling for greater democracy.

Theirs has been a quiet revolution, according to Nadia Yassine, spokeswoman for the banned

Islamist Justice and Charity movement, [1] for King Mohamed VI has seemed to hasten to meet

citizens demands. The international media hails the king as a broadly popular visionary engaging in

proactive political reform to avoid the fate of Egyptian and Tunisian dictators. In the eyes of the

Moroccan government and mainstream political parties, the country has seen a Copernican

revolution [2] led by a wise potentate, a watershed event in the process of completing the

construction of a state based on the rule of law and democratic institutions. The king used the latter

phrase in his June 17 presentation of a radically revised constitution that was subsequently

overwhelmingly approved in a July 1 referendum. If, as per ancient Ptolemaic astronomy, the sun of

Moroccos people has long revolved around an earthly monarch, Moroccos rulers would like

everyone to believe that henceforth the countrys political order will be heliocentric.

But for the February 20 movement, the revolution is still to come. The protesters regard the new

constitution as a half-measure, heavy on inclusive rhetoric and light on actual reform. The events of

spring and early summer have not quieted them, but galvanized them to push for more. The

February 20 movement draws heavily upon a youthful population that had long given up on the

political process and unifies a diverse opposition whose interests rarely align. The rebirth of politics

in the shape of this movement calls into question the monarchys long-standing ability to manage thecountry through patronage and the kings symbolic position as commander of the faithful. And it

may fundamentally challenge what is in fact at the heart of the constitutional reform: a thinly veiled

effort to make Morocco transparent for global investment, welcoming to the wealthy diaspora and

secure for international tourism.

The King Is Dead, Long Live the King

Moroccan political life was stillborn upon the countrys independence from French colonial rule in

1956. King Mohamed V, grandfather of the current king and inheritor of the Alawite dynasty,

emerged as the totem of national unity for a largely rural, illiterate and impoverished population

divided by race, ethnicity and language. An urban elite based in Fez occupied the political vacuum,

principally through the Istiqlal party, which proceeded to extend its administration across the

countryside. The first three articles of the original 1962 constitution, promulgated by Hassan II (who

had succeeded his father the previous year), declared Morocco to be a constitutional, democratic

and social state, located sovereignty in the nation and assured a multi-party system. In reality, the

formal opposition was nominal and actual politics occurred within what is called the makhzen, the

complex (and sometimes fraught) power sharing arrangement among the monarchy, Istiqlal, the

military and what remained of the rural notables empowered under colonialism. The political history


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of Morocco up to the 1990s consisted of Hassan II consolidating power in the palace, coopting those

challengers who could be bought with civil service positions or financial rewards and crushing those

who could not. Moroccans knew his reign as the years of lead.

King Mohamed VI took the throne in 1999 with a promise to turn the page on the worst abuses of

the past, but there are few signs of him ceding power to elected officials or seeking to enshrine civil

liberties and rule of law. For all the political prisoners released over the years since his accession,

activists and journalists are still regularly arrested and convicted of threatening state security or

stepping over one or another red line. The chief red lines forbid questioning the integrity of the

monarchy, Islam or the national territory, a reference to Moroccos claim upon Western Sahara. In

October 2010, the Ministry of Communications banned Al Jazeera from broadcasting in Morocco for

its irresponsible journalism on the question of Western Sahara, only reinstating the channels

license after the July 1 referendum. As late as April 26, Rachid Nini, populist editor of the al-Masa

daily newspaper, was arrested and then sentenced to a year in prison for writing of the existence of a

secret military base where detainees were tortured.

Police routinely crack down with violence on technically illegal demonstrations by Islamists,

Berberists, human rights activists or those without food, jobs or housing. Morocco has been an active

participant in the US-led war on terror, dismantling Islamist associations and accepting rendered

suspects for interrogation and possibly torture, though it was an early signatory of the UN

Convention Against Torture. The kingdom has also been a proxy defender of Fortress Europe,

deporting African transmigrants by the thousands, though it endorsed the UN Convention in Relation

to the Status of Refugees.

As the public sector has been progressively sold off to private interests, more and more of the

nations wealth is in the hands of the royal family and other elites, with the kings personal holdings

estimated at $2.5 billion. In the latest Democracy Index released by the Economist Intelligence Unit,

Morocco placed number 116 of 167 countries judged for the fairness of the electoral process, civil

liberties, government functioning, political participation and political culture. Indeed, Moroccans

regularly accuse parliamentary deputies and senior civil servants of being makhzeniss, men and

women who act in the interest of the state, or themselves, rather than the populace they are

supposed to represent and serve. It came as scant surprise that the 2007 legislative elections

garnered the participation of only 37 percent of eligible voters.

The greatly amended constitution approved on July 1 takes only modest steps to open the political

system. The representation of opposition parties in government commissions and their access to

public financing for electoral campaigns is specified and expanded (Articles 10 and 11), as is the right

of civil associations and NGOs (Article 12) and even of private citizens to bring forward bills (Article

14) and petitions (Article 15). But, as critics rightly point out, the kings executive powers remain

unchecked. The king will continue to name the prime minister and approve the cabinet over which

he presides (Articles 47 and 48); command the military (Article 53); chair the various high councils on

religion, security and the judiciary (Articles 41, 54, 56); name ambassadors (Article 55); approve the

nomination of judges (Article 57); pronounce all enacted laws (Article 50); and at His initiative

dismiss ministers and dissolve the parliament (Articles 47 and 51). The derided Article 19 of the

previous constitutions, which spelled out the kings spiritual and temporal authorities and derived

the latter from the former, is now split into two separate articles (41 and 42). One recognizes the


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king as the commander of the faithful who ensures respect for Islam and guarantees the free

exercise of religion, while the other names him as Moroccos chief of state, supreme

representative, symbol of the unity of the nation, guarantor of the durability and continuity of the

state. The two types of authority are thus delinked, but the kings person remains inviolable (Article

46) and those who call his rule into question are thus subject to prosecution. The new constitution

hardly unseats Ptolemy, let alone enthrones Copernicus, and indeed prescribes punishment for those

who would espouse Copernican belief.

Moreover, critics have challenged the very process of constitutional reform and referendum as

opaque and insincere. From its first mass demonstrations, the February 20 movement had called for

constitutional reform by a democratically elected assembly. The king responded on March 9 by

appointing a Consultative Commission for the Revision of the Constitution chaired by the

constitutional law professor Abdellatif Mennouni and consisting of 19 other members handpicked by

the king and his advisers. Over its three months of deliberations, the Mennouni commission met with

a number of political parties, trade unions and NGOs. It invited representatives of the February 20

movement and other protest groups, who declined because the process was not public. The king

further revised the draft constitution and then submitted it to the country for approval only twoweeks before the referendum. While proportionate airtime was promised to all parties, critics accuse

the campaign process of strongly privileging the yes vote. They charge the king with violating his

non-partisan status by delivering a speech for the constitutions approval and citing a passage from

the Quran enjoining the public to follow his way. The Ministry of Religious Affairs apparently

instructed imams to urge a yes vote during their Friday sermons. All political parties -- including the

opposition Islamist Justice and Development Party, which had initial concerns about the role of Islam

in the new charter -- signed on to the reforms and encouraged their constituents to do the same,

with the exception of four minor far left parties who collectively hold only 22 of the 325 seats in the

Chamber of Representatives (the part of Parliament that is directly elected). On several occasions,

the February 20 movement rallied over 100,000 people across the country in a call to boycott the

referendum, but these demonstrations were harried by police and confronted with violent counter-

rallies by supporters of the referendum who branded the protesters as anti-monarchists. Protesters

said the monarchists were akin to Egypts baltagiyya, thugs organized and paid by the Ministry of

Interior.

The dissenters similarly contest the referendum results. They documented incidents of voters being

bussed to polling stations by local officials, stations not carrying no vote slips and electoral officials

not verifying identification or requiring voter signatures. Moroccan residents abroad, whose votes

were strongly solicited by the government, reportedly had even looser identification requirements

and in some cases voted in mosques under the watchful eyes of the consular officials on whom they

rely for administrative services. Protesters do not dispute the 98.5 percent approval result, blaming it

on a poor, under-educated and intimidated electorate blindly following their political and religious

leaders. But they do question the 72.65 percent turnout claimed by the interior minister, as earlier

Ministry statements, media polls and anecdotal reports had put the figure at no more than 50 or 60

percent. Only 13 million of a potential electorate of at least 22 million, they further note, had

registered to vote in the first place. Even at 72.65 percent, the turnout would be lower than in any

previous constitutional referendum, with the exception of a minor change to the financial regulatory

mechanism that occurred in 1995. Whether this plebiscite provides the monarch with a popular

mandate remains to be seen.


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that does not simply benefit those with family connections. The graduates organizational structure,

non-violent tactics and militant experience laid the groundwork for the February 20 movement. The

latter -- whose membership and leadership consists primarily of young men and women -- demands

state reinvestment in the public sector, specifically the integration of unemployed university

graduates into the civil service by transparent and fair competition. The new constitution seeks to

address these demands by envisioning the creation of a Consultative Council on Youth and

Associative Action that would boost the participation of young men and women in the economic,

cultural and political life of the country (Article 33). While stopping well short of expanding public-

sector employment, it does prescribe state investment in the arts, scientific research and sports

(Article 26) that would ostensibly encourage younger talent to remain in the country rather than

seeking professional opportunities abroad.

As important, the new constitution redefines Morocco as a culturally and linguistically plural state.

The February 20 movement had joined the variegated Berber (Amazigh) movement that for the last

three decades had been calling for the recognition of the Berber language (Tamazight) as an official

language of Morocco on par with Arabic. Mass demonstrations for change that have occurred since

February have consistently included militants carrying Amazigh flags and banners written inTamazight. Previous constitutions had inscribed the official status of Arabic in the first line of the

preamble. No such mention of language is made in the new preamble. Article 5 specifies that Arabic

remains the official language of the state, yet further stipulates that Tamazight constitutes an

official language of the state, as the common heritage of all Moroccans without exception. Some

Amazigh activists continue to worry that the distinction between the definite and indefinite articles

will perpetuate Tamazights secondary status. And they remain skeptical over the effectiveness of the

future law that will regulate the Berber tongues introduction into the education and media systems.

But the change does put Morocco ahead of its North African neighbors in respect for indigenous

rights.

Moreover, the 2011 constitution does not delimit Moroccos diversity to an Arab-Berber divide, butrather portrays the country as a veritable cultural and geographic crossroads. Just as Amazigh culture

is declared to be the patrimony of all citizens, so too is its broader ethno-cultural diversity declared

to constitute its national identity, one and indivisible. The preamble specifies a convergence of

Arabo-Islamic, Amazigh and Saharan components that is nourished and enriched by its African,

Andalusian, Hebrew and Mediterranean influences. If the first two lines of the previous preamble

drew from the language of decolonization and Third World solidarity to specify Moroccos place in a

great Arab Maghrib and African unity, the new introductory stanza invokes a broader globalism

that juxtaposes a future North African union alongside an Arabo-Islamic umma, African solidarity and

Euro-Mediterranean partnership. Arguably, these gestures are purely rhetorical, but the contrast

with prior official identity statements is remarkable.

Finally, if previous constitutional revisions centralized power in the hands of the Rabat political elite,

limiting rural administrators to simply enforcing the law, the new charter allows for significantly

more territorial pluralism. The first article defining Morocco as a constitutional, democratic,

parliamentary and social monarchy also describes its territorial organization as decentralized,

based on an advanced regionalization. Over the last five years, nascent autonomy movements have

sprung up in the far northern and southern, largely Berber-speaking peripheries -- areas that felt

themselves to be economically underdeveloped and marginalized by the central government. The


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peripheries have demanded more administrative self-determination and greater freedom to define

their own development initiatives. [4] The 2011 constitution addresses these demands with seven

new articles proposing state efforts to foster local citizenship and human development across the

regions (Articles 136, 139). It outlines a limited degree of local financial independence while assuring

an equitable allocation of resources, in order to reduce disparities between regions (Articles 141

and 142).

The practical details of the decentralization program -- like so many of the constitutions reforms --

await a set of laws yet to be written. For this reason, even sympathetic activists remain skeptical and

have taken a wait-and-see approach, while more pugnacious groups like the February 20 movement

oppose the reforms as insufficient and ultimately undemocratic. Even since the referendum, these

groups have continued their call for new protests and continued mobilization for the civil liberties,

social justice and dignity they read about in the new constitution but see little evidence of in

everyday life. They draw attention to the hundreds of political prisoners (Sahrawis, Islamists,

Berberists) still incarcerated, the dozens of human rights and union activists arrested in June and the

ongoing censorship of the press. As the name of the independent media website organized by

February 20 activists, Mamfakinch.com, proclaims: No concessions. We will not be undone.

Global Stakes

And yet, to evaluate the new constitution on the sole grounds of its ability to contain domestic

dissent would be shortsighted. Certainly the timing of the reforms was a defensive move by the king

to defuse a burgeoning mass opposition in the wake of the examples of revolt in Tunisia and Egypt.

And a number of the revisions did directly address particular grievances by militant social

movements. But the Moroccan public was arguably but one of several audiences for whom the new

constitution was written. In many places, the document reads less as a model for government than

as a mission statement crafted for the international diplomatic and business community. The

preambles definition of Morocco as a modern, democratic state two paragraphs before its

description as an Islamic sovereign state plays to a global discourse premised on clash of

civilizations rhetoric. The new section on Liberties and Fundamental Rights is modeled on similar

bills of rights in the US and French constitutions. Assurances of transparency, good governance and

civil liberties are vital for the procurement of development monies from international agencies that

increasingly have democratization riders attached.

Development euros are not the only ones at stake. Morocco depends on foreign investment

(particularly from Europe and the Gulf) both to keep state enterprises -- privatized since the late

1980s -- afloat and to provide the infrastructure for its largest revenue source: tourism. Many of

these monies have dried up amidst regional unrest, with the Abu Dhabi-financed Bou Regreg tourist

complex standing half-finished, for instance. Attracting the funds back is of the highest priority.

Assuring the countrys tranquility, unity, stability -- to quote the closing lines of the kings June 17

speech -- counters the anxieties of both tourists themselves and the investors who make their stay

luxurious. Moreover, among the civil liberties ensured in the new constitution are property rights,

free competition and free enterprise (Article 35). Together with new legislation against corruption

and proposed contract transparency laws, the revised charter makes for good neoliberal marketing

strategy. Small wonder, then, that the protesters demands for expansion of the public sector have

largely gone unheeded.


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Second to tourism in Moroccos revenue sources are remittances from emigrants. For years, the

state has expanded its efforts to suture the connection between the diaspora and the homeland,

welcoming Moroccans home on holiday and channeling their remittance monies through national

banks and into domestic enterprises. In 2007, the state created a Ministry of the Moroccan

Community Abroad to strengthen these ties, reaching out particularly to emigrant investors. With

the Mohamed V Foundation for Solidarity, it has expanded the infrastructure for holiday visits,

establishing welcome stations at ferry and airport terminals, as well as overseas in southern Europe,

under the moniker of Operation Marhaba 2011. The new constitution similarly seeks to ensure

emigrants political rights in both Morocco and their countries of residence, guaranteeing their rights

to elect and be elected to public office and promising to reinforce their contribution to the

development of their homeland (patrie) (Articles 16-18). It further inscribes into law the Council of

the Moroccan Community Abroad, consisting largely of politicians, social activists and intellectuals

elected by Moroccans overseas to represent their interests in Morocco and advise the Ministry on its

various programs (Article 163). Such institutions explicitly aim to shore up cultural, economic and

political bridges across the Mediterranean, and thus bolster Moroccos role as a modern player in a

world of global competition.

Such neoliberal globalization requires the heavy hand ofthe state not only to deepen the channels

through which people and money flow, but also to secure such ties from internal and external

threats. The Moroccan state has worked hard to shed its reputation as a breeding ground for

terrorists, especially in light of the April 28 bombing of the Argana tourist caf in Marrakesh.

Moroccan security forces have deployed to break up Islamist networks, in certain cases the very

same ones they helped to foster in previous decades to combat indigenous Marxist revolutionary

movements. The new constitution establishes a High Security Council, presided over by the king, with

the charge of devising strategies for internal and external security and managing crises. In the

preamble, security is placed at the head of the list of basic rights that otherwise include liberty,

equality, respect, dignity and social justice. The order is by no means arbitrary.

References to internal and external security imply more than a domestic terrorist threat. In the

constitution, security is consistently paired with national unity and territorial integrity. The

implied challenges to these fundamental criteria are potentially varied, but the most germane

reference is to the disputed status of Western Sahara -- what the king, in his June 17 speech, referred

to as our beloved Saharan provinces. Since Morocco asserted dominion over the former Spanish

colony in 1975, it has devoted substantial resources to integrating the territory into the national fold.

Moroccan soldiers continue to man the separation barrier between the Moroccan- and POLISARIO-

controlled regions alongside UN peacekeepers in place since 1991. The western port cities of Dakhla

and Laayoune have received heavy state funding for urban development, and residents benefit from

educational stipends, housing subsidies and retirement pensions that exceed those of other

Moroccan citizens and sometimes incur resentment. The preambles discussion of Saharan culture

as a component of Moroccos unity, and Saharas later mention as an integral part of the

Moroccan unified cultural identity (Article 5), expand such efforts at socio-economic integration to

the realms of language, culture and politics. Indeed, the king urged his subjects to approve the new

constitution because it would provide a strong impetus for the final settlement of the just cause of

the Moroccan Sahara. The constitutional referendum thus leaves little room for any future

referendum on Saharan independence, as envisioned by UN resolutions.


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A Rebirth of Politics?

The new Morocco projected by the constitutional reforms is thus a strong, modern monarchy of

diverse subject-citizens free and equipped to compete in the global marketplace. Domestic

contestation would be defanged by mechanisms of good governance that would manage dissent

and provide equity of opportunity, if not equality of outcome. Freedoms and civil liberties would be

guaranteed to the extent that they do not challenge the territorial integrity or national unity of

the country or dispute the centrality of the king or Islam. Increased security and the rule of law

would ensure a safe environment where such free citizens could equally enjoy their fundamental

rights to live and labor. It is a neoliberal utopian space where politics is either illegitimate or simply

unnecessary. Utility maximizes for the wealth of the nation and its individual subjects.

But such a new Morocco does not simply come into being because 98.5 percent of a possible

majority of the electorate votes yes to an eloquent governing document promulgated by the

commander of the faithful. Almost half of the country remains rural and illiterate, unable to make

heads or tails of the constitutions legalese and decidedly unconcerned with the machinations of

urban politicians whom they presume are only concerned with their pocketbooks. Young men and

women continue to flee the country by any means necessary, risking their lives as hidden passengers

in overcrowded fishing vessels in search of Eldorado. And those who remain are anything but the

quiescent, neoliberal subjects of Michel Foucault or Gilles Deleuzes nightmares of a society of

control. [5]

Indeed, the constitutional referendum seems to have only enlivened the political contention that has

simmered in Morocco for many decades. If previously relegated to university campuses where it was

taken as a passing stage of adolescence, or marginalized in semi-clandestine Islamist or Berberist

networks infinitely factionalized and in a constant dance of cooptation by the makhzen, politics has

now literally returned to the streets. The February 20 movement built upon the networks previously

associated with the human rights, trade union, diploms chmeurs and Amazigh circles, conjoining

them into a single umbrella movement that transcended (or at least momentarily sidelined) extant

ideological differences. It actively shared experiences with and learned tactics from other

international youth associated with a history of protests in Serbia, Egypt, Tunisia and elsewhere. It

used Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, blogs, GIS software and a wealth of online news sources to

connect militants across the country, turning every activist into an independent journalist recording

and reporting on her local experiences. On a repeated basis since February, the movement

succeeded in mobilizing over 100,000 demonstrators across Morocco. While the protests did not

concentrate in a single space like Cairos Tahrir Square, their strength arguably derived from their

geographical spread to provincial towns in the countryside and the peripheral working-class

neighborhoods of Rabat and Casablanca. Few could claim that the unrest was simply happening

elsewhere.

How representative the February 20 movement is of Morocco remains to be seen. And how it

ultimately interfaces with the Islamist activists, whose critique of the constitutions projected new

global Morocco follows a different logic, cannot be predicted. There is some indication that the

discourse of both groups is hardening as their frustration with the reform process deepens, that they

may indeed become the anti-monarchists that the counter-protesters accuse them of being. If the

protesters were to make this leap, they would surely lose the tacit support of the majority of


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Moroccans, for whom the king remains a shining star of religious faith and national tradition, a legacy

of the countrys authoritarian political culture that the makhzen stands ready to exploit, its

Copernican pretensions notwithstanding. In the short term, however, the re-politicized youth, in all

of their ideological diversity, can continue to hope for a new social pact, as one anonymous author

on the Mamfakinch.com website notes. Until then, No concessions.

Endnotes

[1] Reuters, April 24, 2011.

[2] Le Matin, June 18, 2011.

[3] On this topic, see Susan Slyomovics, 100 Days of the 2011 Moroccan Constitution, Jadaliyya,

June 30, 2011.

[4] See Paul Silverstein, States of Fragmentation in North Africa, Middle East Report 237 (Winter

2005).

[5] Gilles Deleuze, Postscriptum sur les socits de contrle, LAutre Journal 1 (1990).

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