By Associated Press
RABAT, Morocco — Moroccans began voting for a new parliament Friday in Arab Spring-inspired elections that are facing a boycott by democracy campaigners who say the ruling monarchy isn’t committed to real change.
A moderate Islamist party and a pro-palace coalition are expected to do well in the voting, but a key test for the authorities’ legitimacy will be how many voters cast ballots.
The result will be watched by Morocco’s U.S. and other western allies, as well as European tourists who cherish its beaches and resorts.
In the affluent Agdal neighborhood of Rabat a steady stream of professionals lined up early in morning at a polling station to vote before work.
“I’ve always voted but this time it is more important,” said Mohammed Ennabli, a doctor. “Before it was the king who chose, now it is the people who choose.”
Nadia Zerrou, a woman in her 30s, said voting “is a right which I always exercise.”
“This time there have been developments, there is more transparency and voters are more aware,” Zerrou said.
Morocco’s reputation as a stable democracy in North Africa has taken a hit with this year’s protests. And its once-steady economy is creaking from the amount of money the government has pumped into raising salaries and subsidies to keep people calm amid the Arab world turmoil.
The election campaign has been strangely subdued, unlike the lively politicking in nearby Tunisia when it held the first elections prompted by the Arab uprisings last month.
Morocco with its many political parties and regular elections was once the bright star in a region of dictatorships.
But all that has changed with the Arab uprisings that toppled dictators in Tunisia, Libya and Egypt. Now a political system that holds elections but leaves all powers in the hands of a hereditary king does not look so liberal.
Under the new constitution, the largest party must form the government, which could well be the Islamist party, known by its French initials PJD. But there’s uncertainty over whether it can truly change anything.
The Islamists’ biggest rival for the top spot is Finance Minister Salaheddine Mezouar’s Rally of Independents, which leads an alliance of seven other pro-palace parties.
Mezouar said he expected his coalition to take a majority of the parliament and ruled out any kind of alliance with the Islamists. He also told The Associated Press that he expected a high turnout.
“I am confident about the level of participation, because during this campaign we’ve seen how interested the citizens are in this election, enormously more than in 2007,” he said.
Like elsewhere in the Arab world, Moroccans hit the streets in the first half of 2011 calling for more democracy, and King Mohammed VI responded by amending the constitution and bringing forward elections.
But since then the sense of change has dissipated.
U.S.-based Human Rights Watch said that since Oct. 20 government has taken more than 100 activist in for questioning for advocating a boycott.
“Moroccans feel that aside from the constitutional reform, nothing has really changed, meaning that the elections of 2011 will be a copy of the elections 2007 and that is what will probably keep the participation low,” said Abdellah Baha, deputy secretary general of the Islamist Justice and Development Party.
The 2007 elections, the first with widespread international observation, had just 37 percent turnout, and some fear it could be even lower this time around.
The constitutional referendum passed with over 98 percent voting in favor, and a staggering 72 percent turnout, which most observers found hardly credible.
