A full royal coup in Morocco as the king ousts prime minister designate 

Morocco’s King Mohamed VI has ousted Abdelilah Benkirane as prime minister designate and leader of the the Justice and Development Party (PJD), the largest political party in the kingdom. The monarch has named Saad Eddine Al-Othmani from the same party in his place, and charged him to form a new government, something that Benkirane has failed to do over the past five months.

Benkirane’s failure to form a coalition was down to the fact that none of Morocco’s political parties agreed to join with the Islamist PJD in government. Although the PJD has the largest number of seats in parliament, it is unable to form the government outright because the 2011 Constitution does not allow any single party to have an overall majority which would enable it to run the country.

According to a royal statement, King Mohamed thanked Benkirane for his efforts in running Morocco over the past couple of years, but said that he was concerned about the stability of the country and he took this step to end the “political deadlock”. However, given that Al-Othmani is one of the founders and a senior official of the same party as Benkirane, it is illogical to suggest that the PJD will adopt a different policy to that of the leader in order to attract support from other parties. It is well-known for political and organisational consistency and the commitment of its members and officials to what the leadership decides.

Abdelilah Benkirane has been Head of Government of Morocco since 2011. He is the leader of the Justice and Development Party.

Furthermore, the Moroccan Constitution does not give any clear solution for important issues such as the prime minister designate being unable to form a government. This allows the king to utilise broad interpretations of the Constitution; he holds ultimate power in Morocco. The party close to the monarchy is the Authenticity and Modernity Party (PAM), and it is believed that King Mohamed has been working with its leaders to undermine the government of the PJD. If, as expected, Al-Othmani is also unable to form a government it is expected that the king will then turn to the PAM — the country’s second largest party — to form a coalition.

According to one academic in the Department of Government and International Relations at the University of Sydney, the PAM is a fake party founded by one of the king’s senior advisors. Salma Refass believes that the king and the PAM have played it very well and will succeed in giving a PAM-led government “a façade of pseudo-democracy”.

Aside from the strange Constitution and the “deep state” parties, which are loyal to the king if not actually run by him, the electoral process leads us to the fact that the monarch and his allies are the real administrators of Morocco, regardless of the election results. A recent analysis by the Arab Centre for Research and Policy Studies (ACRPS) concluded that last year’s elections “were planned specifically to take power away” from Benkirane’s PJD. The study also suggested that the polls were not independent, as they were supervised by the ministry of the interior, which is loyal to the king not the government. The study pointed out that the deep state parties had some influence on the elections.

In addition, the interior ministry controls the electoral register and decides on the eligibility of those standing for election and who has the right to vote. The criteria used in such decision-making is ambiguous at best, but candidates have certainly been prevented from standing for office.

The PJD actually reported fraud on the part of the authorities in favour of the PAM on polling day last October and called for the ministry of interior to “intervene urgently.” A video of a man stuffing a ballot box with voting slips went viral on social media and led the PJD to file a complaint. However, Interior Minister Mohamed Hassad rejected the allegation and said that the elections were “transparent” and had gone well.

Ahead of the elections last year, around 8,000 people staged a protest against the PJD and called for the king to stop the so-called “Brotherhoodisation” of the kingdom. No group claimed responsibility for organising the protest, but it was discovered later that it was organised and funded by the “royal” ministry of the interior.

This rally also showed how the public is used as shields in political strife in what is seen as undemocratic action

wrote Abderrahim Chalfaouat in Al-Monitor. He affirmed that the official mass media played a role against the PJD in favour of the king before October’s elections as “it linked positive accomplishments to the king and problematic decisions to the government.”

Monitors and analysts specialising in Moroccan affairs have cited many examples of the way that King Mohamed and the deep state have been using their best efforts to undermine the retention of the PJD in government, not least because it is an Islamic party with links to the Muslim Brotherhood. This could be the reason why the Arab Spring was aborted in every Arab state; the revolutions proved that the Muslim Brotherhood is the only political group which is efficient enough to rule the people without the corruption that is being seen on a large scale across the region.

The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Monitor.