The Morocco of Muhammad VI
For the third time in six months, an Arab monarch has passed from the scene after decades on the throne. King Hasan II’s 38 year reign made him the longest serving Arab leader after King Hussein of Jordan died in February. (Next in tenure after Hasan was Sheikh ‘Isa of Bahrain, who died in March.) Thus the generation of leaders who have long ruled in the region continues to pass from the scene. (See Story, Page One .)
But what now for Morocco? Since gaining independence from France in 1956, the
country has had only two Kings: Muhammad V, the leader who won independence and died in 1961, and his son
Hasan II. Both were strong, forceful leaders, and Hasan II could be ruthless with his opponents, surviving several coup and assassination
attempts, including the dramatic attack on the palace at Skhirat in July 1971 and the attempt to shoot down the King’s aircraft in August of 1972, two events in which Hasan’s nearly miraculous survival
added to his reputation for invincibility. By contrast, the new King, Muhammad VI, has been seen as a somewhat retiring, self-effacing figure, nothing like the assertive leadership type that his father and
grandfather represented. That may be an unfair assessment; when Hasan II came to the throne he was more known as a playboy prince than as a strong leader, and his son may undergo a similar
transformation. (On the new King himself, see the Profile
in this issue.)
The Morocco Muhammad inherits is a study in contrasts. The Arab country closest to (in fact,
within sight of) Europe, and well known to European tourists, it is also very poor, well down the list in rankings of Arab countries. Though it enjoys a Parliament (recently made bicameral) and a
plethora of political parties, all major decisions have remained in the hands of the monarch. The Royal Family is said to own about a fifth of the country’s land, and Morocco’s rich phosphate mines
are a royal monopoly as well. Nor is the monarchy’s prestige solely political. Moroccan Kings, like their ancestors the Sultans before them, have long claimed the title Amir al-Mu’minin, Commander
of the Believers, traditionally a title of the Caliphs of Islam. King Hasan made a particular effort to portray himself as a charismatic religious figure, drawing on the traditional North African veneration
for holy men. Though Hasan was a highly Europeanized, golf-loving King, his official portraits often showed him in the traditional Moroccan jellaba or dressed as a pilgrim in Mecca.
For years, Morocco has come under fire from abroad for its human rights record, for its slowness in implementing the UN Referendum in Western Sahara, and for its lack of greater democratization.
Early in 1998 a veteran Socialist opposition figrue, ‘Abderahmane El-Youssefi, became Prime Minister and there was talk that the King was serious about moving towards a true constitutional
monarchy. But Youssefi failed in a reported attempt to persuade the King to replace powerful Interior Minister Driss Basri, a symbol of the old way of doing business. This Dossier examines
some of the key players in the Morocco inherited by King Muhammad VI.
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Muhammad V |
Hassan II |
Muhammad VI |
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Morocco’s Kings Since Independence |
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Muhammad V file photo; all other photos in this Dossier from Moroccan Ministry of Information website at http://www.mincom.gov.ma |
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Morocco’s political system is rather unlike any other in the region. Its democratic trappings are real — multiple parties with no single dominant one, a Parliament of long standing — yet it remains an authoritarian government controlled by a powerful monarch and his security apparatus. Although its press includes many papers representing parties from right to left, the papers rarely report anything of controversy.
In recent years, there have been signs of change. King Hasan II released many political prisoners n recent years, added an upper house to Parliament, and named a Prime Minister from a traditional opposition party. The country has been generally stable for a generation. But there are numerous problems, some of which are likely to demand the attention of Morocco’s new King: a poor economy,great extremes of wealth and poverty, continuing
foreign criticism over human rights abuses, andlatent labor and Islamist movements which could prove troublesome in the future. Below, a look at some of the major players.
The Royal Family
Morocco is a constitutional monarchy, but the constitution does little to limit the King’s power. King Muhammad VI succeeds a father and grandfather who were strong leadership figures, and thus has large shoes to fill. Although it is said he may have leanings towards becoming a more symbolic sort of constitutional monarch, he still controls
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The ‘Alawi house, the ruling family, claims descent from the Prophet Muhammad; the present dynasty has ruled for some four centuries. Royal cousins and in-laws play many roles in business, society, and elsewhere.
Information about the family life of the late King Hasan was always closely held. Apparently he married at the time of his succession, as, apparently, did his son Muhammad VI (See
Profile , this issue). In Hasan’s case his wife, Lalla Latifa, was not publicly identified until the birth of the first child in 1962. Many Moroccans believe that Hasan maintained one or two additional wives, including a French wife or perhaps mistress, but confirming such stories is most difficult as the King’s family life is a closely guarded secret. Only the children by Lalla Latifa are considered as part of the royal line, in any event.The eldest son, Sidi Muhammad, is now King. (Moroccan princes are referred to with the title Moulay, “master”, unless their name is Muhammad. Since the only “Master Muhammad” is the prophet, princes named Muhammad are addressed as “Sidi”, “my lord”. Princesses are given the title Lalla.) He is a year younger than his sister, Lalla Mériem,born August 26, 1962. She is married to a prominent businessman. The other children of the late King Hasan II are Lalla Asmaa, born September 29, 1965; Lalla Hasna, born November 19, 1967, and finally another son, who will be the new Crown Prince so long as his older brother Muhammad VI remains childless, Moulay Rachid, born 20 June 1970. Muhammad VI has reportedly now taken a wife, still unidentified, so Moulay Rachid may yield the post of heir if a son is born.
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Lalla Hasna |
Lalla Asmaa |
Lalla Mériem |
The Security Establishment
The Moroccan monarchy has long relied heavily on the Royal Armed Forces (FAR), and on an internal security and intelligence establishment of considerable scope and power. In all the publicity
given to the Israeli leaders who attended Hasan’s funeral, and all the praise of Hasan as a peacemaker, it is easy to forget that the first area of close cooperation between Israel and Morocco
was in the intelligence and internal security fields. That cooperation dates from the 1960s at least, when the Moroccan security services and the Israeli ones both had close ties to France; the still
somewhat mysterious disappearance of opposition leader Mehdi Ben Barka may have involved all three services. Israel may also have provided military assistance during the Western Sahara war.
The Armed Forces have, however, on occasion proved to be disloyal: in 1972 the longtime military and security chief Gen. Muhammad Oufkir was accused of complicity in a plot to shoot down
Hasan’s plane; Oufkir “committed suicide” in the aftermath, though even the official accounts made it clear that his “suicide” was more like an execution. In the 1980s, when the Army Commander
Gen. Ahmed Dlimi, the man who created the winning strategy in the Western Sahara war, became too prominent, he died in a suspicious car crash. Since then no military leader has been allowed to
build up a personality cult which could rival the King. One enormously powerful figure, however, is the longtime Interior
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But Basri has long been rumored to be on poor terms with the Crown Prince. Now that Muhammad is King, Basri’s future will certainly be a subject of considerable speculation.
Parliament and the Parties
Morocco’s Parliament has long been one with genuine multi-party competition, but with little real
power. In the past few years, King Hasan II made some effort to give more credibility to Parliament, and to open up a dialogue with some opposition parties. There is some reason to believe that his
son and heir will continue that process. Formerly, Parliament was a unicameral body, with part of its seats elected by district and part by
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The last lower house elections were held in November 1997 (See The Estimate, November 21, 1997) and the first (and so far only) upper house elections in December of that year (See The Estimate, December 19, 1997). The next lower house elections are due in 2002; a third of the upper house will be elected in Deember 2000.
The 1997 elections to the lower house were widely and more or less accurately characterized as a stalemate. The various parties were aligned in three main blocs: 102 seats to the Kutla or Democratic Bloc, who had been the opposition in previous parliaments; 100 seats to the party bloc supporting the previous government; and 97 seats to the Wasit or centrist alignment. The Socialist Union of Popular Forces (USFP), a longtime leftwing opposition party, won the most seats of any single party (57); generally parties of the left and parties backed by the Berber population (a total of some 91 seats in this case, in all the blocs) did well, and a few Islamists entered parliament for the first time under the aegis of a legal party.
The USFP’s success also miffed its longtime ally in the Democratic Bloc, the longstanding nationalist party Istiqlal (Independence), which found its number of seats reduced to only 32 seats, due, it claimed, to electoral gerrymandering.
In a gesture to the former opposition, King Hasan II named ‘Abderrahmane El Youssefi, head of the USFP as Prime Minister. In the 1960s Youssefi had been imprisoned, and was in exile in France from 1965 to 1980. He was reportedly at one point in the 1970s sentenced to death in absentia, but benefited from a royal amnesty in 1980 and returned home. But the presence of a leftist, former opposition leader as Prime Minister has been somewhat tempered by the obvious limitations on the Prime Minister’s power — which is why Driss Basri’s picture appeared long before Youssefi’s in this Dossier.
Many saw — and the Moroccan media sometimes sought to portray — Youssefi’s rise as a sign that King Hasan was genuinely trying to move towards a more genuine constitutional monarchy, and that his son (who supposedly has said he admires Juan Carlos of Spain) might genuinely yield more power to elected bodies. That may take place, but there are many who suspect that the enormous power of both the Royal Family and the security forces will weigh heavily against any move to give too much power to the elected Parliament.
Other Opposition Movements
Not all Morocco’s influential political movements function as legal parties. Although a Communist Party has long been legal, illegal Communist offshoots were common in the 1960s and 1970s. And
although there is a small legal Islamist movement today, Morocco’s most influential Islamist leader, Sheikh ‘Abdessalam Yassine, has long been held under house arrest in Salé, though reportedly
impediments on his freedom of movement have been ameliorated recently. His movement, al-‘Adl wa’l-Ihsan (Justice and Beneficence) remains illegal.
Other potential sources of trouble include labor unrest; the country’s economic difficulties in recent years have led to a number of strikes and labor actions.
In the Western Sahara, Morocco long waged a war against the POLISARIO Front. The often-postponed United Nations referendum has been frequently held up, most commonly due to
Moroccan delaying tactics. In recent years, however, POLISARIO has not been a threat to the Moroccan-controlled portions of the territory.
For years, it has been a fairly common response by foreign analysts when evaluating Morocco to say that, yes, the country is stable, but there are many problems, and labor unrest and the appeal
of political Islam could potentially be a problem once the strong, predictable King Hasan leaves the scene. Now, King Hasan has left the scene; his son is an unknown quantity; and the long-postponed
problems may make themselves the first issue on his agenda.
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