Morocco: When Patronage Prevents Reform

Carnegie’s Arab Reform Bulletin has a new piece up on Morocco, discussing how the pernicious culture of corruption has diminished the political efficacy of Morocco’s previously pro-reform Socialist Union of Popular Forces (USFP). Maati Monjib, a professor and researcher at Mohammed V University in Rabat, recounts a recent episode of three top USFP leaders freezing their party membership after party leader Abdelwahed Radi gave a speech ceding all power for constitutional reforms to the monarchy — a concession that some thought flew in the face of USFP’s stated goal of seeking “political and constitutional reform to extricate the country from the crisis of its struggling democracy.” Many within the party believe Radi surrendered his principles in order to become speaker of the monarchy-controlled parliament.

Lamenting this betrayal of USFP’s “progressive, modernist roots,” Monjib contends that it’s simply “emblematic of problems inside other political parties as well, which struggle with how to pursue their principles in light of Morocco’s patronage based system and the centripetal force of the monarchy.”