Local elections, a key to assessing democratic process
By: Said Elakhal
The local elections held on June 12, 2009, represent a key stop in assessing the democratic process that Morocco is applying under the rule of King Mohammed VI, who has adopted a social, modern and democratic project, and seeks to break with the negative policies undertaken by the State at the time of the late King Hassan II, and which had curbed the rehabilitation of the political and party field for over three decades. This allows us to draw important lessons from the recent local elections:
1- Positive neutrality of the Ministry of the Interior: The administration is no longer part of the competition between parties, nor a decisive factor in drawing the political map. International observers who participated in tracking different electoral processes (the election campaign, polling, counting and announcement of the results) agreed on the neutrality of the administration; in addition to the disciplinary actions taken by the Ministry of Interior against 505 officials who had violated the principle of neutrality.
2- Incorporation of the practice of democracy by giving citizens full freedom to exercise their right to vote for the party that convinces them with its ideas and electoral program, without any pressure, delay or fraud.
3- The political will of the State to make the management of local issues a shared responsibility between local citizens and political parties that recommended their candidates in these elections. Therefore, these parties are expected to control their advisers in local councils, and guide them to activate and realise the electoral programmes that they presented to the voters.
4- The real conditions for sustainable development lie in good governance, for which the major inputs are the involvement of local candidates as key actors in the development of local development programs, which will make local municipalities become a cornerstone in the process of economic, social and cultural development, and the main basis for the consolidation of local democracy and the involvement of citizens in the management of local affairs; thus allowing municipalities to respond to the demands of the population and provide them with quality services. The modern collective charter provides the legal framework for good governance.
5- The importance of involving women in the management of local affairs through a legal provision to allocate 12% of seats in municipal councils to women, and compel parties to nominate an independent list of women with this ratio in each constituency, for women to occupy at least 3,406 seats, compared to 127 seats in 2003, and for the number of candidates to reach 20,000 and 458 nominations (15.7% of the total) compared to 4.8% in 2003.
6- The importance of involving young people, through voting and candidacy, in caring for public affairs, and giving them the opportunity for direct participation in the management of local affairs, on the grounds that the Electoral Code lowered the voting age to 18 years, and the age of candidacy to 21 years.
7- The weakness of parties in regards with training citizens, as traditional and historical parties had been unable to reach the rate of 50% in the coverage of constituencies, thus requiring rehabilitation of the parties.
8- The transformation of parties into a factor contributing to the corruption of elections by nominating wealthy and powerful individuals who entice voters, buy people, and exploit the need of the poor; this brings us to a terrible paradox: the harder the State tries to maintain the integrity of the elections, the harder parties seek to ruin them, while the parties were the ones that always asked the State for neutrality.
9- The confirmation of the inhabitants of the recovered desert regions of their belonging to Morocco, through participation in the polls with rates that were higher than the national average.
10- Moroccans are still reluctant to come to terms with the ballot boxes because of the negative experiences they accumulated, and because of the lack of trust in political parties.
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Your Comments
commentsAnonymous About over 2 years ago
Said El Maghrebi – The political scene is slightly improving compared to how it was during the reign of Hassan II, since the State is no longer part of the political conflict between the parties. However, the parties have not benefited from this improvement because they favor personal interests and seek parliament seats. This reality concerns all parties, both those that describe themselves as progressive, and those described as administrative and which were created by the State in the past to dilute political action. Trust cannot be restored in the parties unless they create political action and punish corrupt people. Parties that recommend corrupt candidates and nominate them in the elections can never build a modern society and cannot create genuine development.
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