Zawaya

Partisan politics and the need for a second round

By: Driss Kassouri

There is no doubt that the municipal elections in their challenges, political aspirations, the form of planning, management and nature of party members and social actors, are different by a great extent from the legislative elections with their objectives and major political and national arrangements.

Although this distinguishing characteristic of the municipalities’ event came into focus with distinction on the June 12 elections, it also came with several new political facts that cast a shadow over the forthcoming legislative elections, imposing to take clear political decisions if there is real political will to correct the political scene and rationalize the partisan performance towards a direction that will restore to the Moroccan political culture some lost credibility, and may lead to reconciliation of the Moroccan citizen with the polls in the future when the elections will either become decisively attractive or be abandoned forever.

Regardless of the political circumstances during which the elections took place, and based on which no one can polish the record of the Ministry of Interior and its external interests – for these elections did not see any substantial difference from the previous ones in terms of the persistence of certain anomalies, such as the presence of money, distribution of false promises, nomination of money barons and symbols of social, economic and political corruption, and holding elections that are like bullying shows and far from morality and rationalism –
and regardless of the continuation of the Ministry of Interior to hold all the threads of legal controls and to tighten its regulation over municipalities in the framework of new governance, and municipalities that promote the development project and the implementation of the policy of proximity and local development, and without engaging in useless talks about the 52% ratio compared with the previous parliamentary elections, we can observe some special features of these elections in order to create a political dynamic that might give some hope to break with the dark past, if officials have the political will.

We can feel this dimension when analyzing political polarity, electoral partisan leadership, councils’ establishment and the organizational and media mechanisms.

These elections confirmed that although major parties could not cover all areas, they have yielded positive results and received a winners’ percentage that was higher than the percentage of candidates at the national level. For example, the party that nominated 16% or 12% of candidates, received 21% or 16% of the winners, benefiting thus from the threshold requirement of 6%, which played as an election joker, and from the system of additional lists, which was not only in favor of female candidates but also played in favor of large parties at the expense of small ones whose political roles in disrupting the municipalities’ map and the balkanization of boards started to narrow.

For the first time in Morocco, the features of a road map towards the establishment of political poles and circles started to become clearer and as much realistic as possible. Therefore, we talk today about partisan poles with unified and linked political or ideological references. If we say that the Moroccan political scene cannot stand embracing the rest of party organizations anymore, then at least we can say that through these elections:

- the majority pole is composed of the Independence Party, the National Rally of Independents, the Socialist Union Party, the Party of Progress and Socialism, which plays the role of the executive power and which can maintain itself as a harmonious political pole if its components shake off the superiority conflict and love of leadership,

- the opposition pole is composed of the Authenticity and Modernity party, the Popular Movement, the Constitutional Union, and the Justice and Development Party which might now join the alliance of the first pole because of its conflict with the Authenticity and Modernity party that will disappear with time, and because of the romancing period it just started with the Socialist Union party.
This polarity remains feasible if the National Rally of Independents decided – in accordance with the role assigned to it – to stay with the majority of the government in response to the orientations of the recent royal message to the Prime Minister, which renewed the royal trust in Abbas Al-Fassi and in the current government, and asked the latter to continue the “biggest workshops”, and based on the voluntary and immediate response of the National Rally of Independents to the royal message, as the President of the party, Moustapha El Mansouri, stated that he will stay with the current majority, and will not follow the footsteps of the Authenticity and Modernity party towards the opposition. Other poles can be formed on the basis of intellectual backgrounds, consisting of:

- A left pole composed of the Socialist Union and the Progress and Socialism party might not be successful or last for a long time

- an Islamic pole that merges the Justice and Development Party and the moderate Independence Party, if they look for an intellectual coherence leaving aside the eligibility of dogmatic superiority or hegemony

- a traditional liberal pole composed of the Constitutional Union and the Popular Movement, where city officials meet with countryside officials,

- and a modern liberal party composed of the National Rally of Independents and the Authenticity and Modernity party where with money meets a selected lobby of new and future managers.

However, this polarity has remained so far as a possible one that is characterized by flexibility, and which is open to more regulatory lineups that will make of it solid, important and strategic poles to urge the Moroccan political scene to harmonize and keep away from conflicts. For this reason, the ballot should be held in two sessions regardless of its political and financial cost since it’s the only way to re-arrange the political map of Morocco on new foundations, and make the elections more credible and effective. Voting in two sessions would entice minor parties to voluntarily join major parties and consolidate votes in legitimate majorities with clear colors, and to access the boards with major headlines instead of municipalities with rainbow colors and lasting conflicts.