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Morocco could enjoy better democracy if the elections that will be held on 7 September produce an efficient and responsible elite. This statement, made by King Mohamed VI reveal the high hopes which the Moroccans attach to the upcoming sessions of the Moroccan parliament elections, which are the second parliamentary elections in the era of King Mohamed VI. The first election was held in 2002. A total of 32 political parties will compete for 325 seats. The official election campaign will continue for 13 days and will end before midnight on the night of balloting.
Local and international monitoring for the first time in the history of Morocco:
A total of 50 foreign monitors will participate for the first time in the history of Moroccan legislative elections with the help of local monitors.
·The speaker of the Moroccan Consultative Council for Human Rights, Ahmed Harzani, has disclosed that for the first time in its history, there will be in morocco foreign monitors to watch and follow up the upcoming parliamentary elections. He added that the Council has managed to convince Moroccan officials that it was useful to have foreign monitoring because it can only make the country surge forth toward an ideal democracy. He explained that the principle of universal monitoring of elections has become internationally known and is even being applied in countries with old democracies.
Harzani explained that the US National Democratic Institute is the main party which is providing this material and logistical support of this foreign monitoring in view of the fact that the laws and norms that are familiar in this field absolutely prohibit the country organizing the elections to offer any material assistance in this regard. He said contacts were still under way with the European Commission in Rabat for the purpose of involving the European Commission in the monitoring process in order to achieve some kind of equilibrium.
The Moroccan Center of Human Rights has voiced its “astonishment and reservations over dependence on the US National Democratic Institute to monitor and watch the Moroccan elections at the request of the Consultative Council of Human Rights. The Moroccan Center of Human Rights said that the US National Democratic Institute was not independent from the US administration in one way or the other. It also voiced its indignation at the attempt to steer the process of watch and monitoring in the direction that would satisfy the Consultative Council of Human Rights.
·The Madrid Club which consists of well-known international political figures will form a delegation of 50 monitors to attend the Moroccan elections. The Netherlands and Canada are two states which have officially expressed their desire to participate in this process.
· Civil society and private organizations are expected to participate in the monitoring and to play the role of watchman alongside the Consultative Council of Human Rights which is designated by the Moroccan King Mohamed VI to lay down the proper groundwork of the organizations that will participate in the monitoring of the elections. Speaker Harzani of the Consultative Council had admitted at an earlier meeting with representatives of the Moroccan Center for the Democracy of the Elections that the center will not risk its prestige or independence. In other words, it would not participate in the monitoring of elections unless there are real guarantees concerning the conditions for the monitoring and its circumstances. This was a reference that the center will not play a role of form in the monitoring. He said that the sound conditions for guaranteeing a real monitoring of the elections is the entry into the ballot offices and attending the vote counting process as well as the process of declaring the results.
·The Moroccan Center for the Democracy of Elections has addressed a memorandum to King Mohamed VI and the Moroccan government that included requests pertaining to the democracy of the elections and the elimination of the despotic nature of the constitution because the upcoming elections will be held with at least the promise to change the constitution.
Hot confrontation of the financial corruption in the elections:
Firm measures were applied by the Moroccan Interior Ministry to curb election corruption when handing over the cards of the voters to the people concerned themselves instead of requesting other personnel to do it for them in an attempt to block the way for playing games and using money to buy votes.
Meanwhile, the National Authority for the Protection of Public Funds in Morocco decided to create a National observatory for the watch of the use of public funds in the elections. It will be in charge of watching the moves of all the candidates and public enterprises which will utilize their material and moral resources to support one candidate against the other. The Authorities said that in election corruption, it is not only public funds that are used. Among the goals of the observatory is to monitor the use of private funds also. Therefore, it will be something like a bank data as it will receive all the complaints and file others whenever there are violations.
A statement said that this initiative comes after the issuance of prison penalties and fines against a group of experts because of their involvement in corrupting the elections of the second chamber of parliament held on 8 September 2006. The statement said that they committed the crimes of receiving bribes and trying to secure votes for candidates by offering gifts or contributions to the voters to influence the way they would vote.
The statement asserted that the observatory is looking forward for the approval of a clear representative scene by providing the appropriate climate for organizing the upcoming elections under a responsible and serious climate, credibility, and provision of the atmosphere, and the active participation of the various components of the Moroccan society free from the traditional methods. The statement repeated its assertion that the National Observatory for Monitoring the Use of Public Funds in the Elections will in turn perform its role within a framework of transparency, credibility and neutrality without representing any particular political party.
Duties of the observatory:
The duties of the national Observatory for the Monitoring of the Use of Public Funds in the Elections can be seen in the watching of the circumstances under which the elections would be held:
1-Provision of all the guarantees for holding free, transparent and fair elections.
2-Providing the conditions of honest competition by the management’s compliance with the principle of benevolent neutrality in the various phases of the election process.
3- Confronting all aspects of illegitimate use of public funds and influence.
Demands made by the National Authority for the Protection of Pubic Funds:
1- Review of the law pertaining to the measures and conditions of funding election campaigns.
2-Sources of the used funds, their ceiling, accountability, the measures of their inspection and the system of the penalties applied on them.
3-Keeping the contributions of the natural persons and the financial participation to the party to which the candidates belong and the private property of the candidates as well as the exceptional financial assistance offered by the state for the purpose of achieving transparency in the financial assistance they get in their property. They also need to reveal the revenues of the candidates and private expenses during the election campaign and prepare an inventory of the property and changing assets as well as other sources of assets and resources and how they should be spent.
4- Lifting the financial and criminal penalties which any candidate could be liable to if his accountancy documents do not comply with the law.
Participation in a diverse settlement:
· Some political parties in the Sahara Governorates decided to place the names of women activists within the national list allocated for women to run for the legislative elections. The common denominator of the names that have been selected by the parties which have officially named their candidates was either they were former activists in the ranks of the Polisario Front in the period of the seventies or that they had relations with one of the incumbent leaders of the front.
· The Socialist Union of Popular Forces, which constitutes the government majority, has prepared a list of its own women candidates, which was contrary to expectations.
· The Secretary General of the Moroccan opposition Democratic Forces Front Party revealed some of the names of the national list designated for women for women, that the party confirmed 58 applications for candidates which was voted on by secret balloting.
· The National Grouping Party of Liberals, which is a government majority, has named the list of its candidates in the 95 electoral constituencies in all the areas where no one single woman was chosen contrary to the remaining political parties which granted their confidence to women. Competition seems to be at its fiercest among 87 women who believe that they were qualified to run for elections and win a parliamentary seat. The criteria which the party spelled out according to a party source will facilitate its plan to chose 30 women candidates. The first criterion stipulates that the candidate should have a party experience. The second criterion spells out the educational standards of the candidates, and the third criterion is the field experience of the candidate in the civil society organizations.
Election violations:
The security services stormed the residence of Rabat Mayor Umar El Bahrawi, who is a member of the Popular Movement and arrested him along with 80 persons who were invited to meet in order to prepare for the elections and to offer him support. They were charged with launching an election campaign before its due date and the exploitation of the State property for personal and party interests such as the cars of the Rabat Municipality in addition to the exploitation exercised by personnel working in the municipality itself.
Some observers and politicians saw in this step taken by the Moroccan state as an evidence of the neutrality of the State and its eagerness to apply the electoral law verbatim. They also saw it as a confirmation of what the government did during the secondary elections of the members of the Council of Advisers last year when the government arrested a number of the candidates who tried to use money to buy the votes of the voters.
Launching the election campaign:
On 18 August, the campaign of candidates for the parliamentary elections was launched. The election campaign will be concluded one day before the beginning of the polling. A statement was issued by the Interior Minister specifying the rules which each candidate should comply with. The statement said the following:
In accordance with the legal requirements that are enforced, each person willing to nominate himself should enjoy the following merits:
· His name should be registered in the public election lists.
· He should be 23 years old at least on the date of polling.
· He should not have been denied the right of nomination according to the organizational law of the House of Representatives.
· In connection with the method of accredited balloting for the House of Representatives elections, statements of nomination shall be submitted in the form of the lists of nomination.
The list of nomination should indicate the name of the candidate, the person in charge of the list, and the order of the candidates in the list, the personal and family names of the candidates, the title whenever necessary, the date and place of birth, the place of residence and profession, and the name or number of the collective electoral constituency.
· The nomination list should be accompanied with a card of the criminal record for each candidate handed over by the General Administration of National Security at a minimum of three months and the nomination list should be accompanied for the political candidates by an acclaim handed over by the competent circles of the party or the Union of Political Parties which list their names in the list. The acclaim should name the list, its agent, and the names of candidates in it with the order they are listed in the list.
Independent candidates:
Two independent lists are competing in the elections. The first is the list of Fu’ad Ali El Himmah, former delegated minister at the Interior Ministry. The second is the list of Muhammad Mubdi’, former leading member of the popular movement. As for the candidates who have no political affiliation, the lists of nomination should be accompanied with a written text of their platforms and with a statement on the sources of financing their election campaigns together with a document carrying the signatures of 100 persons at least endorsed for each seat, i.e. 80 per cent of voters belonging to the electoral constituency, and 20 per cent of the other candidates. As for the nomination lists submitted by candidates with no political affiliation, the national nomination list should be accompanied with a written text of their platforms together with indicating the sources of funding of their election campaigns along with a document containing 500 signatures by the two chambers of parliament or locally elected groups or professional chambers. The interior minister said in the statement that the election campaign will begin on the first hour of Saturday, the 25th of this month, and end at 2400 hours on Thursday, 6 September.
Large-scale criticism of the accredited electoral system:
Foreign observers designated to monitor the Moroccan legislative elections have criticized the electoral system accredited in Morocco. They called for the consolidation of the powers of the upcoming parliament. A preliminary international mission designated to evaluate the legislative elections said in a report that the proportionate system based on the winning of the list which is given the largest number of votes as well as the recent electoral division may not allow any party to win a large majority in parliament and could produce a situation of non-proportionality between the larger number of votes won by some parties and the lesser number of seats they would get in parliament. Observers believe that this electoral system may weaken the authority of parliament and reduce the confidence of the voters in the system and in political parties. They suggested in their report that the authorities launch measures to consolidate the elected parliament so as to inject confidence in politically elected bodies and institutions.
The mission which stayed in Morocco from the ninth until the 15th of August was dispatched by the Democratic National Institute For Domestic Affairs, which is a non-government organization based in Washington. It is headed by former US Secretary of State of the Democratic Party, Madeline Albright. The goal of the Institute is to strengthen democracy in the world.
Observers assess this electoral system as follows:
- It weakens the authority of parliament.
- Reduces the confidence of voters in it and in political parties.
They suggested in their report that the authorities should adopt measures to strengthen the elected parliament so as to disseminate confidence in the political process and institutions.
Allegations about violations:
The joint committee of the Justice and Interior ministries has summed up the claims on violations into six categories:
1- The claim of launching a publicity campaign before the due time for it. (195 cases)
2- The use of money to buy the votes of voters. (4 cases)
3- Actions that favor men of the regime (4 cases)
4- Utilization of the state resources and the resources of the local municipalities (40 cases)
5- Suspicious actions by some employees of the public government departments, local municipalities and public enterprises (913 cases)
6- The use of violence, threatening the voters and disrupting the legal controls regulating registration in the election lists. (11 cases)
A statement issued by the joint committee that the claim that 231 violations were reported by the press are divided as follows: Violations committed in the governorates and districts 60 cases, violations on which complaints were made totaled 46 complaints. Casablanca scored the lion’s share of claims of violations (64 cases). A very few cases were recorded in the desert governorates (two cases in each of al-Uyun, Bojdor, and al-Saqiyah al-Hamra. No election disputes were raised in Wadi al-Dahab and al-Kuwayrah area while the remaining areas scored different rates.
Stands taken by the Human Rights organizations:
Human rights organizations and the press have condemned the buying of votes in the previous elections of 2002. Two weeks before the polling, the Moroccan prosecution was notified with 142 violations pertaining to the preparations for the elections, with the campaign for the elections in Morocco starting on 25 August and ending on 6 September.
Government pledges:
The Moroccan prime minister pledged that the government will run the legislative elections in the atmosphere of the well-known neutrality and that the executive branch of government which he heads will apply this neutrality by respecting the law throughout the various phases of the electoral process. The prime minister asserted that the Moroccan government will apply the law to confront those who are tampering with the elections. He warned against the trade of the election votes.
Attempts to restore confidence in the importance of the elections:
The State has taken all the needed measures to make the electoral process succeed and to restore the confidence of citizens in these elections through the following measures:
· publishing new elections instructions which awakened the political parties from their sleep and pushed them forward to hold extraordinary conferences to make their laws keep pace with the new parties law.
· Holding an extraordinary review of the election lists.
· Involving international monitors along with the consultative council of human rights in this process.
The participating parties:
A total of 33 parties will participate in the elections of 2007 compared with 26 parties in the elections of 2002. These parties belong to three major trends: the parties of the government coalition whose term has expired (left, right and center), the Islamic factions, including the Justice and development party, and the third is an alliance of three leftist non-government parties.
· The Socialist Union which has the insignia of the violet rose, which preferred not to nominate its secretary general Mohamed El Yazghi.
· The Front of the Democratic Forces which did not nominate its national leader el Tuhami El Khiyari.
· The League of Freedoms, which did not nominate its secretary general Ali Belhaj.
· The Socialist Union of the Popular Forces.
· The El Istiqlal Party.
· The Popular Movement.
· The National Grouping Party of Liberals.
· The Justice and Development Party. |
