How did the Moroccan and Jordanian monarchies survive the Arab revolutions? Was it something to do with the constitutional amendments made by their monarchs? Whilst protesters have defeated their governments in republics like Egypt, Tunisia and Libya, the Arab monarchies such as Morocco and Jordan have remained intact. But, are these reforms being released unconditionally or are they just mere pledges? And would they be enough to quiet the population? Or will the protesters, perhaps, ask for more which has been taking place in Jordan for the past couple of weeks?
Since the start of the Arab Spring in 2011, two young monarchs Mohammed VI of Morocco and Abdullah II of Jordan, announced the beginning of a political opening process and THEY promised reforms to contain tensions and avoid any "revolutionary contagion" within the two kingdoms. However, the actions which would supposedly quiet their population seemed to not satisfy some of the new social movements.
So in order to counteract the mobilization of these social movements, King Abdullah set up a Committee for National Dialogue. In addition, he also remodeled his former government and promised a group of political and socio-economic measures. The Dialogue Committee has raised some issues that were considered as priorities in the past years. For instance, adopting a new electoral law that would allow proportional representation, implementing a law which recognizes the rights of the teachers, and fighting corruption in the country were some of the priorities mentioned. Meanwhile, groups of young people, teachers, human rights activists and members of various left-wing political formations, have created more than fifty movements – and between them, the two most active being "March 24 Movement" and "Student Rights Movement”-. These movements are asking for a real transition into a constitutional and parliamentary monarchy. They believe that the King still has excessive privileges – he normally dominates the legislature choice and in addition to that he is able to dissolve Parliament and to make the Government resign-.Moreover, they also require a real campaign against corruption and they ask for a real commitment in terms of economic reforms that would curb unemployment –which it is estimated by authorities a percentage of 13.4% from the population whereas by independent experts the estimated percentage is more than 20%-.
On the other hand, the shocking wave coming from Tunisia and Egypt led King Mohammed VI to re launch a political and constitutional process of reforms that has been delayed since February 2011. However, the king did not make any reference to the protests during the speech he addressed to the population, where he announced these reforms. Otherwise he limited to enact as quickly as possible and in order to present his project he commissioned a draft in which the Committee talked about the administrative decentralization, and this in order to review the Constitution and propose amendments to it. The proposals of this Committee were approved by referendum on July 2011 "by more than 98%" of the votes -with a participation rate estimated by the authorities of 70%-. The most important amendments were: the nomination of a Prime Minister elected from the parliamentary majority, the enlargement of the Prime Minister prerogatives, the adoption of Amazigh as the second official language in the kingdom, strengthening the independence of the judiciary power, and lastly, the importance given to the Human Rights international agreements. Nevertheless, the king is still the Commander of the Faithful – Amir al-Mu’minin – and may promulgate dahirs –decrees- although only in the religious sphere. Then, most political parties and movements in Morocco -both left-wing and right-wing, secular or Islamist- have supported these amendments. However, the movement of young Moroccans who called for demonstrations in late January 2011 and managed to mobilize thousands of students and civil society activists around Morocco on February 20th -and later on numerous occasions- , has condemned the meanwhile tinged demagogic political maneuvering and estimated that the referendum has represented the return of electoral fraud. This movement, which has taken the name of “The February 20 Movement”, has been also joined by two leftwing parties and the large Islamist movement “Justice and Charity” -officially banned but tolerated by the Moroccan authorities-, and as many observers and journalists, believes that the new constitution does not change much in the prerogatives of the King. And the movement believes this for many reasons: firstly, because it was the king himself who formed the Committee to amend the Constitution, so it has already limited it independence. Secondly, the King still retains the right to dissolve the Parliament and make his Ministers resign. He chairs the meetings of Government and remains, then, as the head of the executive power at the same time that he has authority over the legislative power. Also chairs the High Council of Ulemas –the highest religious body in the country- as the "Commander of the Faithful", which actually maintains an ambiguous relationship between religion and politics, leaving the Monarch an important margin for maneuver.
To conclude, these amendments suggested by both kings represent a small step in the large path towards democracy, which is something really positive to both countries. However, there are still a myriad of questions with no answer, for instance, how will the monarchs improve the human rights within their countries? , how will they restrain discrimination of gender, race and religion? , is the population ready to trust the state institutions? , how will the current protests end in Jordan? And most importantly, to what extent is religious legitimacy of Jordan and Moroccan monarchs linked with the lack of revolutions in both countries? It is a matter of time, though, to proof that effectively these reforms are carried out within the daily life of Moroccans and Jordans. The two monarchies need time, distance and loyalty towards their pledges and reforms in order to keep the population quiet.
- Christina Barragán
Universitat Rovira i Virgili
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