Morocco : The challenges of democratic reform (Part I)

Hosted by CSIS

Participant:

H.E. Mustapha Khalfi, Minister of Communication, Morocco

Jon Alterman, Director of the Middle East Center

2. Overview

While revolutionary change has brought Islamists to rule in several Middle Eastern countries, it was evolutionary change that brought Islamists into government in Morocco after more than a decade in opposition. The country’s own future trajectory and its inspirational power for other religious opposition movements in the Middle East remain the subjects of considerable debate. Minister Khalfi discussed why Morocco’s third way – between revolution and retaining the status quo, resulted from unique conditions in the kingdom.

3. Summary

Minister Khalfi noted that Morocco’s response to the Arab Spring was a result of reforms that had been instituted over the past six years, and others going back even further, to Youssefi’s time as prime minister. There were two views anchoring perceptions of the King’s reform agenda in response to the February 20th movement: from skeptical to positive. The period between Feb 20th and the election of Nov 25th was a competition between these views. The election results showed that Moroccans want a serious and credible democracy. Although the new constitution is not ideal and won’t radically reshape the political system, it provides many opportunities in its implementation that reflect the King’s speech of Mar 9th in which he talked about equality, justice, accountability, and other values to be incorporated into the new constitution.

The Minister elaborated by defining three factors which explain Morocco as an exception: the monarchy’s leadership role that enhances credibility and stability; the existence of political parties, including the opposition, which gave them experience in building coalitions; and the role of civil society, which, in fact, often promotes issues before the political parties accept them as part of their agendas.

He listed four challenges facing the new government. First of all, implementing the constitution including power-sharing, expansion of freedoms and liberty, regionalization – the key to solving the Western Sahara problem, and good governance, including reforming the judiciary, accountability, and transparency—the key to building citizen trust. Passing new legislation for the local elections to be held in the fall is the next challenge. It is necessary to succeed in reconciling people with politics, i.e. make them believe that the process works for them. Goal is to facilitate the emergence of new local elites who will work with the youth. The third challenge is the need to resolve social and economic problems, especially poverty, which in some areas is twice the national average. Related to this is dealing with the impact of the European financial crisis which affects tourism and exports. All of this impacts the overwhelming need to create hundreds of thousands of jobs to both absorb existing unemployed and the 150,000 annual new entrants to the job market. The GOM has established a public-private partnership to address this challenge and to build an educational system that prepares people for the job market. Finally,Minister Khalfi mentioned the growing positive environment for closer regional cooperation, which would also lead to resolving the Western Sahara crisis.