Morocco: Campaigning for the Disenchanted · Global Voices
Hisham Almiraat

The electoral campaign for the local council (or communal) elections in Morocco, due on June 12, 2009, was officially launched  on Saturday, 30 May. Some 30 parties will compete for 27,000 rural and urban council seats spread across the country over about 22,000 electoral districts. A quota has been imposed on all parties to guaranty a minimum of 12 per cent women representation, whilst the voting age has been lowered from 23 to 21. The government pledged neutrality in the process and declared through its ministry of interior that “all measures will be taken to prevent vote-rigging,” a phenomena that has long plagued electoral processes in the north African kingdom.
Walking in Bernoussi (a neighbourhood in Casablanca), by oNico® in Flickr.
These elections come after an amendment of the so-called Communal Charter that organizes and determines the role of the communes. The reform intends basically -according to some analysts [Fr]- to strengthen the political power of the communes, to reinforce their independence and to increase their accountability. It is way to ensure good governance -at least officially.
The debate seems to be raging over the Moroccan blogosphere about the relevance of the process, participation over boycott, and the balkanized political scene.
Taha Balafrej [Fr], recollects his memories of a similar poll held back in June 1997, only to find out unsatisfactorily, that the obstacles to progress that he detected 12 years ago are still standing on the way:
[C]e pays que nous aimons tant, se trouve empêtré dans une situation délicate. Il est confronté à des défis importants, vitaux. Pour s’en sortir, il a choisi une voie consensuelle. Celle de la construction démocratique. Pas à pas. Jalon après jalon. Pour y arriver, de nombreuses années de formation et d’apprentissage, sont nécessaires. Pour réussir, l’engagement de tous est indispensable. Mais ces bonnes paroles, ces précautions, ces considérations objectives, rationnelles et claires butent sur des logiques négativement manœuvrières, sur des ambitions malsaines. Sur des appareils qui ont des logiques et des visions qui tranchent avec le bon sens.
Disenchanted, El Yacoubi comments on the aforementioned post as follows:
[Ces élections sont] un hypersouk où les voix s’échangent , se vendent , se bradent.
À gauche , comme à droite : des promesses et des billets..circulent , s’entrecroisent , s’affrontent , s’entrelacent et se séparent , avec un sourire entendu et moqueur .
On the 25 May, a new group, calling itself “the Association of Moroccan Bloggers” [Ar], believed to be close to the banned Islamist group of Al ‘Adl wal Ihssane (Justice and Charity), appeared on the blogosphere, calling for a campaign to fight electoral corruption by reporting through electronic means, all cases of electoral fraud that bloggers might encounter. The “manifesto” reads:
The campaign is vehemently supported by veteran human rights activist and retired politician, now blogger, Abdelkader Alami [Ar]:
Morocco has indeed suffered throughout its 50 years of independence from endemic corruption, not least during electoral processes. Transparency Maroc [Fr], a branch of Transparency International, an NGO committed to fighting corruption, whilst it salutes the creation of the ICPC, the newly founded anti-corruption authority, deplores “the lack of efficient reforms and the persistence at the level of the communes of poor services and infrastructures, corruption and cronyism.”
On a more derisive tone Mounir Bensaleh [Ar], writing on the collective blog Nebrass A'shabab [Ar], explains the ethology of a new species of what he describes as “electoral domesticated animals.” They are a bunch of political opportunists who have become so familiar to Moroccan voters:
Most recurrent themes seem to be apathy, disinterest and often ignorance of electoral issues. This is a sentiment Mohamed Behrani [Ar] blogging on Nebrass A'shabab tried to touch upon:
This disillusionment stems from deep concerns about the relevance of such electoral process in countries such as Morocco where the power remains essentially centralized.
Throughout the Maghreb, 2009 will definitely be remembered as an electoral year, but as Nawaat, a dissident Tunisian collective blog explains:
Regrettably, these elections –[…]presidential elections in Algeria, Tunisia’s presidential and legislative elections in October, and Morocco’s local council elections in June – attest not to the vibrancy of democracy in the region, but rather to its lingering authoritarianism.