Region's Protests Spread to Morocco

Thousands of protesters took the streets in Morocco on Sunday to demand sweeping changes to the nation's constitution, defying predictions that this thousand-year-old monarchy would prove an exception to the demands for greater democracy that are sweeping the region.

In Rabat, the capital, a crowd of up to 10,000 people marched through the streets chanting: "Down with autocracy" and "The people want to change the constitution," as well as slogans against the government, corruption and state television.

Morocco is one of the last of the so-called Maghreb countries of Northern Africa to take to the streets in the wake of the fall of Tunisia's president this year, and many analysts have predicted it would prove an exception.

Indeed, as protests began Sunday, there was virtually no visible uniformed police presence in Rabat and no sign by early afternoon of the state violence witnessed in Egypt, Libya, Bahrain or Iran. Stores were largely unshuttered and cafes open along the protesters' route toward the parliament, as patrons watched from their sidewalk tables sipping cafe au lait in the partly Francophone capital.

Yet Sunday's demonstrations, triggered as in Egypt by a Facebook campaign, underscore the potential for political tension. Morocco has seen some steps toward democracy over the past decade, including two elections that international observers declared largely free and fair, but most powers remain with the king and his appointees.

A crowd that included Islamists, leftists carrying Che Guevara banners and the apolitical uniformly stopped short of calling for the removal of King Mohammed VI. The king, who took the throne in 1999 and dramatically improved Morocco's once notorious record on torture, as well as on women's rights and some other areas, is widely popular. There were similar protests Sunday in Casablanca, Morocco's much larger business center.

But as elsewhere in the Middle East and the Mahgreb, a younger generation is demanding systemic change. If granted, it would transform the distribution of power in this nation of 32 million, stripping influence from what a U.S. diplomat described as Morocco's "monarchical autocracy" in a 2008 U.S. State Department cable published by WikiLeaks.

"People don't take part in elections in Morocco, they are meaningless. We want a monarchy, but like in Spain or England," said Aharahi Fawzi, a 30-year-old IT specialist with a university degree, who has been unemployed for three years—a common complaint in Morocco. Spain and England both have largely ceremonial monarchs who have limited powers.

Bystanders, generally older, looked on with disapproval. "This king works for the people. He has done a lot for the poor," said a 67-year-old who said he was a landscape artist and gave his name only as Mohammed. "I don't know what these young people want, we who are older have seen a lot."

Protest organizers put out a video to promote the demonstrations, in which a group of young people, one after the other, say in a single sentence why they want to take part. The reasons include "so that I can get a job without bribing," and "so we can hold accountable those who ruined this country."

The spokesman for the government said that it looked on with "serenity" at the prospect of demonstrations, of which there have been many before in Morocco.

But the government appears to have been rattled. Several government ministers sought to taint protest leaders as foreign agents, homosexuals or other claims in public comments; Twitter campaigns sprang up apparently spontaneously to persuade young people not to attend; and an online rumor was spread that the protests had been canceled. Protest organizers put out a second video to counter that rumor.

Many diplomats and analysts, as well as ratings agencies, have predicted that Morocco would prove the least susceptible country in the region to unrest, a prediction still supported by Sunday's light police presence. They cited the comparative tolerance of a regime where thousands of nonprofit organizations operate freely, and where there have been relatively free elections over the past decade.

"This just isn't the same country as 10-15 years ago," said Robert M. Holley, a retired U.S. diplomat and executive director of the American Moroccan Center for Policy, a lobby in Washington, D.C. "The point is that if people want to change the government in Morocco, they just have to wait a couple of years until elections and do it."

Morocco scores the highest of all countries in the region on Freedom House's indexes of political representation and civil liberties. At the same time it scores among the lowest on economic indicators, ranking 114th in the 2010 United Nations Human Development Report, compared with Egypt at 101st, and Bahrain at 39th. Morocco's gross national income per capita of $2,770 and literacy rate 56%, according to World Bank data, are particularly low. Libya, Iran, Jordan and Bahrain have GNI per capita ranging from $4,000 to $25,000, and all have literacy rates above 80%.

There is growing frustration at the slow, and some saying slowing pace of political reform in Morocco. Though parliaments are elected, the king appoints the prime minister, as well as the ministers of justice, foreign affairs, defense, interior and religious affairs, as well as all regional governors. He also has the right to block laws.

As a result, election turnouts have fallen steadily, dropping to 37% at the 2007 parliamentary elections, from 58% 10 years earlier. Similarly the PJD, an Islamist party that chose to participate in the democratic process and didn't take part in Sunday's demonstrations, has lost support to the harder-line Justice & Charity movement.

"People in the U.S. and Europe always say Morocco is free. But if you look here, it isn't true. We want real elections where the people get to choose what they want," said Nabil, a 24-year-old protester and supporter of Justice & Charity, who declined to give his surname. He said he feared reprisal.