Introduction
A
fter the national elections of 1997, Morocco experienced a period of political and administrative transition. Seen from afar, the subsequent course of events looks simple: the reforms lasted from 1997 until the fundamentalist attacks in Casablanca in 2003, and they have stagnated since. But seen from up close, the picture becomes more complex. Inside Morocco, the forces of the old order and the new continue to wrestle with one another in the Makhzen1, there are fundamentalists of very different hues, andthe ruling social democrats are increasingly embattled. Internationally, Morocco is seen on the one hand as a relatively liberal friend of both the West and the world of Islam and as such, it is handsomely rewarded with aid. On the other hand it is regarded as a troub- lesome neighbour of the European Union and as a place where Islamist extremism is rife. All this makes Morocco’s political and administrative transition a kind of shadow play that is hard to understand.
Most commentators tend to focus on national politics. But local government has been changing too. I will argue that while reforms may have run out of steam at national level, the wind of change is still blowing steadily at local level.To what degree does local poli- tics point the way to Morocco’s future? The trends identified at the end of this chapter can be seen as tentative answers to this question. It is in focusing on local government that this chapter seeks to make a contribution to the debate about Morocco’s political and administrative transition.
It is structured as follows. Firstly it outlines the recent history of reform at national level. Secondly it presents the state of affairs with regard to local government. Lastly it suggests a number of trends at local level, observed over the last five years in the Platform for Intermunicipal Cooperation between the Netherlands and Morocco, in which Dutch local authorities work together with Moroccan local authorities.
The history of reform: is reform now history?
At national level, incremental but sweeping changes have come to Morocco’s political and administrative landscape since 1997.That year, parliamentary elections were held and the next year, the social democrat party USFP (Union socialiste des forces populaires) and
1 The Makhzen – the palace – is a word that signifies the power of the King and the political for- ces close to him. Morocco’s constitution assigns a formidable position to the King, and his influ- ence is especially strong when the country is torn over issues. Since the accession of Mohamed VI in 1999, the connotation of conservatism no longer applies to the Makhzen.
the former communist party PPS (Parti du progrès et du socialisme) took up seats in govern- ment, with social democrat Youssoufi as the prime minister. This took place within the context of greater respect of human rights and humanitarian gestures by King Hassan II, such as the release of political prisoners.
However, the bureaucracy and the security services were left essentially unaffected. That is, the early reforms concerned the outward aspect of the state but not its internal workings. King Hassan II, ever the deft puppet master, allowed more actors into the governance system. But he had no desire to have it crash, becoming Morocco’s Honecker in the process.2This did not happen. Hassan II died in 1999, after which his
eldest son took over as King Mohammed VI.
Under Mohammed VI, the outward aspects of reform, apart from the important new law governing marriage and the family,3concerned greater - but not complete - press
freedom and more respect of the rule of law. Its inward aspects have been focused on decentralization and curbing the power of the security services.4A tentative coming to
terms with the country’s repressive past and attention to disadvantaged regions have been the further hallmarks of Morocco’s recent history. The parliamentary election in 2002 resulted in a balance between the social democrats and the conservatives in parliament, and in a cabinet around Prime Minister Jettou, a non-party politician who announced that reforms would go ahead.
In short, Morocco seemed to be on the right governance track until 16 May 2003, when Casablanca became the scene of a series of bombings and attacks perpetrated by a group of Moroccans calling themselves Salafia Jihadia. Prominent among the targets were a hotel and a restaurant, both foreign owned. At least thirty three people died.The reac- tion to the bombings was fierce, both on the part of the security services, which soon arrested thousands of ‘extremists’, and on the part of civil society, which organized mass demonstrations against violence.The King visited the scene of the bombings soon after, and his shaken people rallied around him.
The implications of the bombings for Moroccan politics and administration are still unclear. The events shattered Morocco’s self-image as a nation coming to terms with pluralism, under a young, modern King beloved by all.The security services were quick to capitalize on this opportunity to redeem themselves in the public eye.The bombings presented opponents of reform with the argument that the changes had gone too far, because it was the reforms that allowed pockets of extremism to arise in deprived urban areas.
A sketch of Moroccan politics today shows three ‘movements’: a social-democratic one, a fundamentalist one, and one close to the Makhzen.These movements are made up of loose groupings of political parties, civil society organizations, associations for social
2 Erich Honecker, leader of the German Democratic Republic (‘East Germany’), famously lost his touch in 1989, greatly accelerating the disintegration of the state and the eventual absorption of the German Democratic Republic into the Federal Republic of Germany.
3 See the contributions of Van der Velden and Azzine elsewhere in this book.
4 Relieving Driss Bachri, the dreaded Minister of the Interior and public face of the repression, of his post was the most visible sign of further change.
work, and in some cases sections of the bureaucracy. Each movement has its own pro- blems. First, the social-democratic movement lacks legitimacy because it seemed to have the opportunity to change the political system but failed to do so. Second, the funda- mentalist movement has the most solid grassroots organizations and a good record of delivering social services in slum areas, but it now suffers from the insistent image that it is window dressing for terrorists.5And third, the Casablanca bombings demonstrated the
Makhzen’s inability to protect its people from harm.This view was compounded by the
authorities’ response to the subsequent earthquake in the north of the country, which was widely seen as inadequate.
So these days, the three main political movements all have their own particular legiti- macy problem. Handling extremism is now Morocco’s central political issue. For the moment, this rules out the broad consensus needed for further reform at national level, even when this is needed to address the causes of extremism. But what about the impact and the prospect of reform at local level?
Local government in Morocco: its state of affairs and its politics
The municipal level of administration used to be the least-developed level in French colonial times. It was firmly under the control of administrators dispatched by the cen- tral government.At one point in time, these administrators were even called commandant
du cercle, a martial term which says it all: local populations were not supposed to have any
real influence. Rural areas were left to their own devices and were paid only scant atten- tion by colonial administrators.
As the state started growing in the decades after independence (1956), ministries such as education and health created local units. The officials that head them are called délé-
gués. This was a form of de-concentration of the state, with the délégués answering to the
centre and receiving their funds from it. Municipal councils, which elect a president who serves as the mayor, have been in place since the 1960s.6But they had little influence on
the délégués. And everyone in local politics and local administration, including délégués and mayors, was very much subordinate to the wali, the administrative head of the region, chief representative of central government and governor of the forces of law and order.
The essence of the system of central control survived until the period of reforms, when decentralization hit home in two important respects. In the first place, a revised
5 Much like Sinn Fein in Northern Ireland or Fatah in Palestine.To the dismay of Moroccan par- ties like the PJD (Parti de la Justice et du Développement), which calls itself moderate and peaceful, others hint that its participation in the political system is little more than a cynical front while other parts of the fundamentalist movement plot more violence.
6 As always in Morocco, the rural areas were given their governance structures later than their urban counterparts. Essentials such as the civil registry, the tax registry, and some services have been introduced to rural areas since independence, but rural communes are still markedly diffe- rent from urban municipalities to this day.There are now about 1,500 communes, urban and rural taken together, spread over sixteen regions and thirty nine provinces. Casablanca, Morocco’s largest city, has its own special structure.
local government law gave municipalities competencies in policy areas such as services, waste and the environment, culture and sports, and town planning. The boundaries of these areas are still fuzzy, but it is now clearly up to the local councils to draw up the budget for some of these policy areas. The Ministry of the Interior has to check and approve the budget. When executing the budget, there are autonomous policy areas – these tend to be the less glamorous ones – and other policy areas where councils have to work together with délégués or the regional bureaucracy of the wali.
In the second place, 2003 saw the first local council elections based on a party list system rather than an electoral district system.That is, in 2003 people from all over town voted for parties which in turn occupied the seats on the council. Before, the people of an electoral district – a neighbourhood – voted for individual candidates to occupy that particular district’s seat on the council. It is important to detail the ramifications of this change in the system.
Before decentralization, local politics worked more or less as follows. Citizens had an interest in voting for the ‘big man’ of the neighbourhood, in the hope that he would bring home benefits in the form of jobs, services, and public infrastructure.These favours needed to be extracted from the centre, to the disadvantage of other neighbourhoods. The system resulted in inefficient allocation of resources and reinforced patronage.7The
deal in the electoral district system was attractive to both sides: with a unanimous block of support, the citizens of a neighbourhood would have a better chance of obtaining benefits, while the big man stood a chance of being propelled into national politics if he delivered the block of votes at parliamentary elections.
The new system of the 2003 municipal elections did not, of course, rid local politics of patronage overnight. But there has been a noticeable change in incentives. Local poli- ticians now have an incentive to consider the interests of the town as a whole. If they want votes, local party branches have to come up with programme content, giving citi- zens more choice.This may in fact be the first time that party affiliation has really star- ted to matter at local level. New themes such as town planning and youth policy have made their entrance, now that the relentless grind of bringing benefits to electoral districts has abated.
Local governments have yet to establish their position in the political and administra- tive landscape of Morocco, and there is still an ingrained habit of waiting for orders from above. But the reforms have had a significant impact at local level, in terms of new com- petencies for municipalities and altered incentives for local politicians.The next section of this chapter is about the changes that this has brought about.
Local government in Morocco: trends
In the context of reform, the following trends or phenomena can be observed at local
7 By the end of the 1990s, the demand for drugs had soared in some parts of Europe and culti- vation in Morocco intensified. It became an uncomfortably common phenomenon that families with an interest in the drug trade had members on local councils, much to the dismay of European countries.
level. Because the reforms are so recent, it is still impossible to say whether these transi- tions will stand the test of time. Nor does this chapter seek to claim that they are occur- ring everywhere in Morocco.8
In the first place, local civil society is taking over local councils. Many people who ran non-governmental organizations (NGOs)9critical of the state have been elected coun-
cillor.This background and the fact that local councils have yet to become an undispu- table feature of the political and administrative landscape makes local government a place where much criticism of central government can be heard.
But what about local government and fundamentalist parties? Is it not the case that such parties emerge directly from civil society, with strong grassroots associations? Are they taking over? These questions are often raised in the West and are tinged with awkwardness. In fact, the number of local council seats occupied by the moderately fun- damentalist Parti de la Justice et du Développement (PJD) and the like is nowhere very large. This forces fundamentalist parties to forge local coalitions, thereby tempering any extre- me standpoints they might have. There are persistent rumours that fundamentalist par- ties could have won more seats in 2003 but chose to limit the number of candidates fiel- ded, due to pressure from the Makhzen. It is impossible to know what really happened. It is clear, however, that both the fundamentalist parties and the Makhzen have an inte- rest in cultivating this story: the fundamentalists because it implies they are more impor- tant than they would otherwise seem, and the Makhzen because it reinforces the belief in its power.
The second trend which can be observed is a weakening of party affiliations, especi- ally in Morocco’s peripheral areas. Local politics often offers a similar general picture to national politics: it is divided between a social-democrat, fundamentalist and Makhzen- related movement. But there is also ample evidence of conflicts between local party branches and central party organizations. New local parties are established as a result, or the local party branch ends up openly disagreeing with central office. Even the PJD, famous for its discipline and social networks in local communities, suffers from this.The weakening of party affiliations may seem to contradict the conclusion above that parties are starting to matter at local level. But it is quite possible to distrust central party struc- tures while adhering to local party branches. Morocco has a long tradition of distrust of the centre.
8 The Moroccan municipalities involved in the Platform for Intermunicipal Cooperation bet- ween the Netherlands and Morocco, of which the author is the secretary, are: Maârif (part of Casablanca), Sisi Maarouf (part of Casablanca), Ben Msik (part of Casablanca), Al Alaroui, Zaio, Figuig, Nador, Oujda, Larache, Assilah, Guercif, Jerada, Al Hoceima, Imzourene,Tetouan, Midar, and Berkane.
9 Contrary to widespread use of the term in Morocco, the definition of civil society used in this paper stresses that merely being non-governmental - not being part of the state - is not enough. After all, football clubs and bakeries are also non-governmental. Civil society organizations need to be active in the political landscape and critical of the state to be worthy of the name: to moni- tor, criticize or take action against the state, or to publish on such issues.This sort of definition has been pioneered by the Indian academic Neera Chandoke.
Local parties are also criticizing their own central organizations because of the third observed trend.This is a nascent administrative culture of negotiation and compromise. To get things done, local governments have to engage in deals with the state, represen- ted by the walis of the Ministry of the Interior and the délégués of the line ministries.The positive side to this is a modest switch away from the old habit of waiting for orders.The problematic side is that local populations can be profoundly intolerant of compromise with the state, especially if the local government in question is composed of old civil society hands of Berber origin. Compromise with the state gets things done, but also makes one vulnerable.The strategy of criticizing the state in such circumstances helps to mask the underlying process of negotiation and compromise.
The fourth observed trend is that local governments are increasingly engaging with local NGOs for service delivery, especially for implementation of social policy. This is hardly surprising, since many of today’s councillors come from an NGO background. Local governments in Morocco these days are wondering how to contract with NGOs, whether the Ministry of the Interior will allow greatly expanded budget lines for local NGOs, what sort of NGO influence to allow over local government policy, and how to organize participation generally. Most of this is purely local stuff, which again flags a move away from waiting for orders from above.
The fifth and last observed trend is the politicization of local media. As local govern- ments are given the power to spend more money as a result of decentralization, the media have taken an interest and now have the courage to report on a wider range of issues, regardless of the consequences. This is a sign that real politics has finally arrived on the local scene. However, the media sometimes seem less interested in reporting facts, and challenging local governments to come up with different facts, thereby holding them to account, than in speculation about power struggles, allegations of corruption, or rumours of involvement in the drug trade. While it is certainly true that some of the scandals are outrageous and some of the allegations are founded, this type of politiciza- tion of local media makes life hard for local governments in an awkward and counter- productive way: it puts local governments in the dock of public opinion, and it distracts councillors and officials from their tasks.
Conclusion
This short overview of recent trends is certainly far from complete and probably fails to take into account the great regional differences in Morocco. Nevertheless, it does allow us to draw a number of conclusions. The most significant conclusion is probably that