By Oren Dorell
(USA Today) – Morocco’s overwhelming approval of a new constitution granting new rights to women and minorities was met with scorn by some democracy advocates and hope by foreign policy experts that the reforms could become a model for Arab monarchies facing uprisings. Morocco said the reforms proposed by King Mohammed VI were approved by 98% of Moroccans who took part in a vote Friday — the first Arab nation to hold an election since the “Arab Spring” protest movement swept the region. The amended constitution gives more power to the elected parliament and establishes an independent judiciary but the king will still control matters of foreign policy and religion. It comes at a time when other Arab monarchies, such as Bahrain and Oman, have used violent repression as a response t calls for democratic reforms. David Ottaway, a member of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, says the North African nation differs from other Arab monarchies in ways that bode well for political reform in Morocco. Morocco has had independent political parties and labor unions since the former French colony gained independence in 1956. Moroccans travel back and forth to Europe for work and pleasure, and Moroccans are accustomed to mingling with Europeans in their bazaars. “It’s much more like Europe than the (other) monarchies of the Arab world,” says Ottaway, who recently returned from a research trip to the country. Whether Morocco proves a model for other monarchs dealing with restive populations remains to be seen, he said. “All the Gulf monarchies only have consultative assemblies, not parliaments with legislative authority,” he says. Arab monarchies are paying attention to what’s happening in Morocco, says John Bolton, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations under former president George W. Bush. Bolton says it is unclear whether the constitutional changes are “cosmetic or something more significant” until they are implemented.
“They’re looking at suggestions for how will that work in their situation,” Bolton said. Pro-democracy advocates such as The February 20 movement, named for the date its demonstrations began, opposed the vote because they disliked that the reforms were drafted largely by advisers to the king. On Sunday about 1,000 of their members protested in Casablanca and Rabat. But many Moroccans were supportive of the measures. “This will help,” says Faycal Aithaadi, 31, a cook who stood Friday with his arm around a security guard at the Moroccan Embassy in Washington after voting in favor of the new constitution. “The king, he gave up a lot of things for his people.
