The Arab press has half-heartedly followed the Moroccans’ appointment with the legislative elections, held on the 7th September. On the eve of the vote, there were more than a few Western ‘experts’ worried by polls which predicted a crushing victory for the Party of Justice and Development (PJD). The greatest fear was that the rise to power of the country’s largest Islamic party might compromise the path of democratic reforms that Morocco has been following for some years. In the Arab world, however, there are few people who believe that these elections could lead to a sudden Islamist swerve in Moroccan politics. Indeed, the results have seen the PJD take just 47 seats out of a possible 325. The nationalist Istiqlal party, on the other hand, confirmed its position as the country’s principal political force. In face of these figures, which disprove all allarmist predictions, the Arab press has not let the opportunity slip to criticise Western analysts for their ignorance of the political dynamics of the Arab world.

“The results of the Moroccan legislative elections on the 7th September have surprised those who expected a radical change in the political landscape of the Alauita Kingdom, or even a Palace revolt,” explains Ridha Kefi in the Tunisian newspaper Le Temps. “Those who better understood this country saw, on the other hand, a confirmation of its capacity to progress along the democratic road, albeit at its own pace and without unsettling its own secular balance. For us Tunisians, who share our Arab-Islamic and Maghrebin identity with the Moroccans, these results offer lessons which is would be good not to ignore.” One such lesson being the fact that nationalist parties, as Istiqlal has shown, never disappear from the picture and are capable of regenerating and reblossoming. “The Algerian National Liberation Front (FLN) and certain Communist parties of the former Soviet block have already proven this in the past.”

Another important lesson has been given by the PJD leadership’s mistake in attempting to replicate in Morocco the success of the Turkish party of the same name, currently in power there, unaware that the Moroccan PJD does not have the same capacity to mobilise popular support. This view is shared by Wisam Saada who, in the Lebanese daily Al-Safir, dedicates a long article to a comparison between the Moroccan PJD and its Turkish ‘cousin’, the AKP. Saada firstly highlights the profound difference in the ‘context’ in which each party operates – the Turkish kemalista, a republic with a strong secular tradition, and the Kingdom of Morocco, ruled by the Alaouite monarchy (which claims a direct descendence from the Prophet Mohammed), and whose links with Islam are guaranteed by its constitution (the King holds the title of amìr al-mu’minìn – Prince of Believers) and whose legitimacy is therefore much more strongly based on religion.

With regards to the remainder of the Maghrebin press, the most important Moroccan daily, Le Matin du Sahara, ten days on from the elections, continued to propose editorials highlighting how “the results of the legislative elections have confirmed an intangible reality, by now inscribed in that which will become the country’s standard political current, that is, that democracy will continue on its course and the institutions which embody it will become ever stronger.” Strengthened by the positive judgement of the EU on the transparency of the elections, the pro-monarchy paper interprets the results of the elections as “the crowning of His Majesty King Mohamed VI’s vision, whose desire to equip the nation with solid and democratic institutions goes hand-in-hand with his determination to root them in an irreproachable transparency and legality.”

But the Maghrebin press has many voices, however. And amongst these there are also the occasional independent one like the Algerian daily El-Watan,(The Nation), in which the journalist Hasan Moali denounces the fact that, in spite of predictions to the contrary, the Moroccan political landscape remains unchanged: “The pyramid of parties has not been upturned.” Furthermore, it is Mohammed VI who will nominate the Prime Minister, in accordance with the constitution. “Once again, the last word belongs to the King. And to him alone”, Moali notes. The press of the Mashriq (the Arab region east of Egypt and north of the Arab peninsular) has afforded little attention to the Moroccan elections, and has not succumbed to the alarmism which has been so widespread throughout the Western press. The journalist Rania Adel, for example, just a few days prior to the elections, speculated in the Egyptian al-Ahram on “the risk of an increase in the strength of the Islamists”, yet at the same time recognised that the Secretary General of the PJD, Sa’ad El-din Othmani, often described as ‘the Erdogan of Morocco’, has always presented his party’s political programme as based on both “the reference point of Islam and on the democratic option”: “In its political action, the PJD has never intended a head-on collision with the monarchy.”

In general, the eastern Arab press has considered the actions of the PJD with a mixture of curiosity and admiration. “In recent years,” writes Jamil al-Nimri in the Jordanian daily al-Ghad (The Day), “the experiment of the PJD has attracted a lot of interest, since it represents the most significant Islamic current within Morocco and has become the vehicle for a political discourse which marries a certain pragmatism to broad perpectives on the future of the nation.” The experience of the PJD also leads to a wider reflection, which can also be extended to other Arab nations: “The Islamic parties are increasingly directing themselves towards moderate programmes which do not constitute a threat for free elections. We must take account of the fact that the spread of political Islam can no longer be considered a sufficient excuse for the obstructing of democratic reforms.”

There is no lack of dissident voices ready to speak out against the PJD, however, such as that of Husayn Majdubi who writes in Al-quds al-arabi (Arab Jerusalem) – the most interested of all international dailies in the developments of the Moroccan elections. According to Majdubi, the victory of Istiqlal was far from unexpected. Indeed, a large part of the electorate was mistrustful of the PJD, which, having been founded just in 1992, is considered to be a ‘young’ party – a characteristic which, in the Arab world, is more often a synonym for inexperience and unreliablility than of innovation and dynamism. “In the end it is the fear of embarking on a dangerous ‘adventure’ by choosing a party without a clear political identity, and the risk of importing an eastern model, foreign to the way in which Islam is perceived and experienced by Moroccans, which won.” Istiqlal, on the other hand, “represents a better example of clarity, reliabilty and moderation. It has always defended the idea that reform is possible working through the monarchy, but never against or without it.
Finally, one issue which everyone has been discussing is the extremely low turnout at the ballot box. Only 37% of those eligible to vote chose to do so. This exceptionally low participation is comparable with that registered in Egypt in 2005 (23%) and in Algeria in 2007 (35%). In addition to undermining the real democratic value of the elections, such a low participation is the sign of a disillusionment with politics on the part of the electorate. According to Abdallah Khalifa, of the Bahrain daily Akhbar al-khaleej (News of the Gulf), the reason for this ‘cooling’ of the Moroccan electorate lies in the disappointment of not having seen realised the promises of the coalition government in terms of social assistance and subsidies. “People want solutions to problems relating to support,” writes Khalifa, echoing the views of many electors so frequently interviewed by the Moroccan press. Such as Ahmad, an office worker, who declared to the daily Al-Tajdìd (The Renewal): “I didn’t vote! Why? Because in 50 years I have seen nothing change. The candidates take the people for a ride and care only for their own interests. This is why the turnout has not been what was expected. People have not voted so as to show their anger towards a defective ruling class.”

Translation by Liz Longden