MOROCCO: LEGISLATIVE ELECTIONS, FOR THE UNINITIATED

… and only two socialist PMs: one was pushed, the other failed to live up to expectations

Why do we need these representatives in Parliament House? The new constitution theoretically sets us in a different kind of constitutional monarchy: under 1996 Constitution, the Monarch was not under obligation to appoint a partisan Prime Minister, just the same in earlier versions:

1962 Constitution and following on Prime Minister appointment:

Article 24: Le Roi nomme le premier ministre et les ministres. Il met fin à leurs fonctions, soit à son initiative, soit du fait de leur démission individuelle ou collective.

Article 65: Le gouvernement est responsable devant le roi et devant la Chambre des représentants.

1970 Constitution:

Article 24: Le Roi nomme le premier ministre et les ministres. Il met fin à leurs fonctions, soit à son initiative, soit du fait de leur démission.

Article 59: Le gouvernement est responsable devant le roi et devant la Chambre des représentants.

1972 Constitution:

Article 24: Le Roi nomme le premier ministre et les ministres.

Il met fin à leurs fonctions, soit à son initiative, soit du fait de leur démission.

Article 59: Le gouvernement est responsable devant le roi et devant la Chambre des représentants.

1992 Constitution:

Article 24: Le Roi nomme le premier ministre. Sur proposition du Premier ministre, Il nomme les autres membres du gouvernement.

Il peut mettre fin à leurs fonctions.

Il met fin aux fonctions du Gouvernement, soit à son initiative, soit du fait de la démission du Gouvernement.

Article 59: Le gouvernement est responsable devant le roi et devant la Chambre des représentants.

1996 Constitution:

Article 24: Le Roi nomme le premier ministre. Sur proposition du premier ministre, Il nomme les autres membres du Gouvernement.

Il peut mettre fin à leurs fonctions.

Il met fin aux fonctions du Gouvernement, soit à son initiative, soit du fait de la démission du Gouvernement.

2011 Constitution

Article 47: Le Roi nomme le Chef du Gouvernement au sein du parti politique arrivé en tête des élections des membres de la Chambre des Représentants, et au vu de leurs résultats.

Sur proposition du Chef du Gouvernement, Il nomme les membres du gouvernement.

and when it comes to instances, we have had a plethora of Prime Minister ever since 1955: of all 15 Prime Ministers (leading 26 Governments) only seven were partisan politicians, two were monarchs and the rest were technocrats overseeing transitions or standing for day-to-day politics when some major political deal falls short. And until this election, the Prime Minister had very little legitimacy on and from the benches, including both partisan politicians of the so-called Alternance Consensuelle.

The assumption behind the position of Prime Minister is that some kind of parliamentary caucus is supporting his job (as yet, no woman has been appointed to the position) as in passing the bills he needs to enact, most importantly the budget bill. Throughout the years, parliamentary majorities were there to keep government business out of trouble, the Censure Motion for instance. As a matter of fact, the constitution as always been very ambiguous on the Bicephalous legitimacy the Prime Minister has had to manage up to now: first from the Monarch, who appoints him to form a government in his name, and by popular vote, and that’s where parliamentary majority comes in, and that is pretty much where comparison with genuine parliamentary monarchies, for it is a well-known fact majorities in the house have always been a tricky business, and is most likely to remain so with the new government, although the horse-trading is theoretically supposed to move from mere petty politics to genuine negotiations to insure workable majorities.

Dr Benhima (1967-1969) later on Interior Minister, famously stated: “General Oufkir did not commit suicide”

Prime Ministers’ personalities evolved throughout the years: there were amenable ones, amenable, that is, to opposition and pro-regime parties, and these have been quite useful in times of political strain for instance. And many of these Prime Ministers, supposedly leaders of their governments, often returned to duties at junior levels: Dr Mohamed Benhima, a Prime Minister between 1967 and 1969, returned as State Minister for Agriculture and Agrarian reform in 1970, then as Interior Minister between 1972 and 1973. Another instance of cabinet demotion (so to speak) Ahmed Laraki, Prime Minister between 1969 and 1971, returned as Foreign Affairs minister in 1974-1975. The position of Prime Minister did not come with significant powers, especially when the office holder has to deal with a boss like Hassan II: Ahmed Osman -a former classmate of his and Borther-in-Law- was a notorious Yes-man, as Stephen Hughes and Ignace Dalle reported:

“He seldom expressed an opinion of his own, and the only time he said “no” to the King was when he had asked him whether had refrained from using painkillers” (I.Dalle – Les Trois Rois p.394)

So Strong-willed Prime Ministers were actually rare: setting aside the Royals, those who actually had enough charisma to stand up and pursue their own political agenda were both Left-leaning PMs, Abdellah Ibrahim(whose tenure came brutally to an end thanks to then-crown Prince My Hassan) and Abderrahmane Youssoufi (although his legacy has followed a crash-and-burn trajectory very early on) That of course, remains my personal assessment, and I would be happy to discuss the fascinating topic of “who was the best Prime Minister Morocco ever had?”.

The bottom line is, the Prime Ministerial office has been that of an anonymous underling, with little or no margin for manoeuvre, and sense of initiative was certainly not a prerequisite of the job. Is it likely to change with the next election? I submit it is very unlikely. Next piece might deal with some speculation over the next Prime Minister, but so far, party leaders have all pledged their refusal to express any dissent vis-à-vis the Royal will. And that, I believe is not the present constitution’s fault: we have had over the years, a perverse mechanism, by which competent elements are set aside in favour of Yes-men and obedient characters; Of course, nothing is likely to abruptly change, unless – and there comes the backbone of my own views on constitutional reforms- the constitutional framework allocates important powers to the Head of Government, so as first to stimulate political appetites, trigger competition for the fittest. And because there will be no bail-out, political parties would be forced to cast their incompetent elements in favour of others better prepared for actual government. And to do so also requires a strong parliament, with enough prerogatives to nominate and check on a government upon which they bestow genuine confidence.

Why is it no political party can “rule” by itself? In other terms, how come we always need a coalition (sometimes very heterogeneous) to form a government, even with the Alternance Consensuelle?

To begin with, this has marginally little to do with the number of political parties, in fact, a “weak coalition” setting is multifarious, as it ranges from political gerrymandering to ballot system, from weak root activism to the existence of powerful local notabilities, “Moul Chkaras”. And when the administration meddles with elections for some 30 years, nasty tactics do not disappear by themselves.

Gerrymandering: Opposition parties have always denounced constituency boundaries because many of those reduce their chances to carry seats. The most recent example is the 2007 Elections, where PJD caucus carried 500,000 votes, some 100,000 more than Istiqlal, but the latter has got 52 seats, some x more than PJD. Now, this can mean two things: PJD-led districts have delivered higher majorities, or constituencies where PJD was neck-and-neck with competitors (most famously, the Prime Minister’s district, Larache) boundaries over such and such borough in such and such city can be a deciding factor, since most PJD seats represent urban districts.

Gerrymandering, as denounced by many opposition parties over the years, is not the only factor preventing those political organizations -past and present- from what they have considered their right to move into office; indeed, politics of elections in Morocco is hardly a zero-sum game, even though political parties are convinced it is so. While it is true some districts have been allotted with fewer openings for seats, the administrative boundaries do encompass these districts, and administrative provinces have been designed with some other considerations in mind, considerations that rise above petty short-term politics. Security issues, and the need to control rural populations have been more urgent and important to that effect. The traditional dividing line between Useful Morocco vs Useless Morocco was not born out of constituencies’ boundaries.

A straightforward illustration of discrepancies between popular votes and caucus size is to compute the number of constituents per carried seats: the lower the ratio, the more favoured a political party was, relative to the carried constituencies: assuming two parties got similar number of votes, one will carry more seats than the other, because the former has a lower electability ratio than the latter.

Average ratio was, throughout, between 33,000 and 47,000 voters/seat

Many of my off-line friends and acquaintances from Rabat or Casablanca showed a great deal of sympathy towards PSU, and would my party have chosen to contest these elections, their votes would have been cast in favour of PSU or Left-Alliance candidates. It’s all very commendable and laudable (from y perspective anyway) but in these specific constituencies, it is very hard, almost impossible to carry more than one seat; first because competition is fierce among ideologically similar parties, the electability ratio is way higher than the national mean, and it requires a lot more than just a few dozen additional votes to make a difference. In that respect, the boycott option spared PSU-AGD candidates the painful and costly ordeal of campaigning in highly competitive districts.

In Casablanca, a candidate needs to gather around 63,000 votes to get elected. In Rabat city, the number goes as high as 57,000. This explains partly why many members of the Left-Alliance leaned in favour of boycotting; for it is a suicide mission to go campaign for votes in large cities; true, there are more seats out there to take (Casablanca and Rabat urban rings gather 48 seats) but it is a costly and hazardous endeavour not every candidate can undertake.

Morocco: Legislative Elections, for the uninitiated