Journal of Democracy

A clear will to achieve fairness and transparency was evident in the multiple initiatives and actions of various actors before and during Morocco’s 7 September 2007 parliamentary elections. Almost as soon as he took charge in 1999, the young monarch Mohamed VI voiced strong condemnation of all the practices that had demeaned the electoral process (and the rule of law more generally) under his late father’s rule.

Joining deed to word, in 2007 King Mohamed called for new regulations and monitoring systems meant to bring his country closer to the standards that define real democracies. This set off a debate about the best legal settings and instruments (institutions, bodies, procedures) to adopt. Political parties swiftly joined the discussion, as did large numbers of activists (including many academics) from a wide array of civil society groups. The media closely covered the exchanges, which added transparency if also a dash of sensationalism. What was accomplished does in fact seem to deliver on the good intentions that underlay the original push for electoral-system reform. There was a revision of the electoral code, a new law on political parties, and an array of fresh regulations governing various new and old institutions. Together these steps upgraded the whole electoral framework.

The new rules aimed at boosting prospects for clear alternations in power via more focused and coherent competition. After heated debate, a 6 percent threshold was set for parties seeking seats in parliament.

The Constitutional Court overturned a law setting forth a minimum [End Page 36] parliamentary-seat quota for women on the grounds that the statute would violate the principle of equality between the sexes. The political parties responded by agreeing to place enough women sufficiently high on their candidate lists to elect at least thirty (a number that in the event was actually slightly exceeded). The 35 women in the new Parliament make up almost 11 percent of all MPs—not enough by international standards or for many feminists in Morocco.

The political-parties law set the conditions for party creation so as to rule out fundamentalist, regionalist, or anti–human rights formations. It also let parties merge, and laid out rules for public funding of parties as well as the monitoring of how those funds were to be spent. A watchdog agency came into being to ensure fair media access to all parties.

The work of election monitoring also came in for a number of profound changes, the biggest being the part played by volunteer domestic observers. Both the state and private groups welcomed foreign observers, while the findings of monitors both foreign and domestic received prompt and ample media coverage.

In a word, all the pieces were in place to make these elections an exemplary moment in Morocco’s evolution toward real and full democracy. The paradox was that after all this work, turnout fell spectacularly, going from 52 percent in 2002 to just 37 percent five years later. Who should be blamed for such a massive decline? Without a doubt, the parties bear the brunt of the responsibility, for they clearly failed to speak to citizens’ real concerns. In a word, one might say that the stage designer did well, but the actors stumbled. [End Page 37]