Morocco's Islamists and the legislative elections of 2002: the strange case of the party that did...

Morocco’s Islamists and the Legislative

Elections of 2002: The Strange Case of the

Party That Did Not Want to Win

MICHAEL J . WILLIS

The Islamist Party of Justice and Development (PJD) contested the legislativeelections held in Morocco in September 2002 and was expected to do well. However,despite a favourable electoral climate, the PJD’s electoral chances were complicatedby, first, a call to boycott the elections from Morocco’s largest Islamist movement and,second, the party’s own reluctance to be seen to perform too well and thus invite anadverse reaction from the Moroccan regime. The party appeared to deliberately limitits campaign but still tripled its representation and became the third largest party in theParliament. It decided not to join the new governing coalition, preferring to become,for strategic reasons, the largest opposition party.

The national legislative elections held in Morocco in September 2002

occurred at an important juncture in the country’s domestic political

development as well as during an increasingly turbulent period

internationally. Domestically, the elections were portrayed as the latest stage

in Morocco’s slow but continuing process of political liberalization.

Internationally, the elections were held against a backdrop of growing

uncertainty in the Arab and Muslim worlds following the events of 11

September 2001, the international war on terrorism, the continuing violence

in the Middle East and the growing likelihood of a US-led attack on Iraq.

The elections took on further potential significance both domestically

and internationally with the participation of a notably Islamist political

party in the poll. Morocco’s fractured party political landscape, together

with difficult domestic and international contexts, led to speculation that

this Islamist party might perform particularly well in the elections and might

even emerge as the largest single party and thus be in a position to dominate

any post-election coalition government, with uncertain consequences for

Morocco’s internal politics and external relations.

Mediterranean Politics, Vol.9, No.1 (Spring 2004), pp.53–81ISSN 1362-9395 print

DOI:10.1080/13629390410001679928 © 2004 Taylor & Francis Ltd.

Michael Willis is Assistant Professor at Al Akhawayn University in Ifrane, Morocco.

91med03.qxd 18-Mar-04 6:59 PM Page 53

The Political Context

The legislative elections of 27 September 2002 were the seventh set of such

elections since Morocco achieved independence in 1956. Held at long and

erratic intervals during earlier decades, elections moved into a more settled

and regular pattern by the beginning of the 1990s in a reflection of the

kingdom’s more settled domestic political scene. At the same time,

successive elections seemed to be progressively freer of the accusations of

high level manipulation and lower level corruption (mainly in the form of

vote-buying) that had traditionally dogged elections in Morocco. These

changes came as part of a wider process of gradual and cautious political

liberalization that the kingdom had embarked upon from the early 1990s.

Constitutional reforms in 1992 and 1996 had also given more power and

thus more credibility to institutions such as the national legislature,

theoretically increasing the importance of elections.

A perceived major staging post in the process of political liberalization

had been the government formed in the aftermath of the rather inconclusive

legislative elections of 1997, which was dominated by parties from the

country’s long-time opposition. Effectively out of government since the

early years of Morocco’s independence, the entry into government of these

parties was seen by many as a significant development – not least in

symbolic terms. The assumption of the post of prime minister by the leader

of the largest of these parties – Abderrahmane El Youssoufi of the Union

Socialiste des Forces Populaires (USFP) – was particularly symbolic given

the fact that Youssoufi had previously been imprisoned by the regime and

had spent periods of self-imposed exile in protest at the lack of democracy

in the kingdom.

However, despite these promising developments, the appointment of

Youssoufi to head a government dominated by parties of the long-time

opposition did not signify as much of a political watershed as might first

appear. First, the inconclusive nature of the results of the 1997 elections had

not given a full legislative majority to the Kutla alliance of opposition

parties and had obliged them to bring other parties, including long-time

political foes, into the governing coalition. The oppositional hue of the new

government was further compromised by the presence of ministers holding

key portfolios in the new government that were not from the parties and

were instead the direct appointees of the king himself. Indeed, the continued

dominance of the political system by the monarchy – which, despite the

constitutional reforms of 1992 and 1996, was still able to wield ultimate

political power – was the final and most significant restraint on the new

government’s potential freedom of manoeuvre and action.

In spite of these constraints, much public optimism greeted the

formation of Youssoufi’s government in April 1998, which was expected to

54 MEDITERRANEAN POLITICS


further and increase the pace of political reform and liberalization within

Morocco. More importantly it was hoped that a government dominated by

the country’s largest socialist party would begin to tackle Morocco’s

substantial socio-economic problems: specifically high unemployment, low

levels of literacy and the growing gap between the country’s rich and ever

increasing rural and urban poor. By 2002 and over four years on from the

formation of what became known as the alternance government of

Youssoufi, opinion was divided about how much progress had been made

by the government in satisfying and meeting these expectations and hopes.

Although most Moroccans were willing to acknowledge that certain

political freedoms, notably the freedom of expression, were – with some

qualifications – more advanced than five years previously, most similarly

acknowledged the lack of headway Youssoufi and his colleagues had made

in alleviating Morocco’s huge socio-economic problems. Explanations for

this failure were varied and stressed a range of political and economic

factors. However, many feared that this failure had undermined – perhaps

fatally – the public credibility of Youssoufi, the USFP and the other

members of the Kutla and that this in turn might serve to strengthen support

for more radical political alternatives – most notably the country’s Islamists.

The Islamists

In contrast to most other similar states where Islamist activism and

sentiment is focused in one dominant movement, Morocco’s Islamist

movement is much more fragmented. A number of different organizations

and movements exist but two main ones predominate: At-Tawhid wa al-

Islah (Unity and Reform) and Al-Adl wa Ihsan (Justice and Spirituality).

The two movements have rather different historical origins and orientations

and they adopted very different stances towards the election of September

2002.

At-Tawhid wa al-Islah and the PJD

The Islamist organization most directly involved in the elections was

At-Tawhid wa al-Islah. Emerging from the more radical Al-Shabiba

Al-Islamiyya (Islamic Youth) movement of the 1970s, At-Tawhid wa al-Islah

and its forerunner organizations moderated their political stance and sought,

from the early 1980s, official recognition and the right to form a political

party. It was finally able to enter the legal political scene by being permitted

in 1996 to join an existing political party – the Mouvement Populaire

Démocratique et Constitutionnel (MPDC), led by Adelkrim Al-Khatib, a

respected senior politician with links to the Royal Palace. Consequently,

members of At-Tawhid stood as candidates in the legislative elections of

55MOROCCO’S ISLAMISTS AND THE 2002 LEGISLATIVE ELECTIONS


November 1997 with nine of them securing election to Parliament. One year

later the MPDC, by now dominated by At-Tawhid members, changed its

name to the Parti de la Justice et du Développement (PJD) [Willis, 1999].

Once in the national Parliament the PJD began to carve a place for itself

in Morocco’s complex party political landscape. In Parliament, the

parliamentary group grew in size by winning parliamentary by-elections

and by attracting defections from other parties, thus raising the party’s

presence to 14 members by 2002, which entitled it to an office of its own

and other parliamentary privileges. Although invited to join the coalition

government of Abderrahmane El Youssoufi following the 1997 election, the

party politely declined the invitation, preferring not to tie itself too early and

too closely to a government whose future path and ability to change things

was still uncertain. Rather than placing itself among the ranks of the new

opposition, the party assumed an official position of what it termed ‘critical

support’ for the new government. It hoped that this would allow it to give

overall support to the reformist agenda of the Youssoufi government while

retaining the ability to distance itself from possible failures and difficulties

experienced by the new government.

During the election campaign of 1997, much attention had focused on

the MPDC’s platform and the extent to which it sought to further a radical

Islamist agenda. In response, the party was at pains to emphasize its

moderate and mainstream nature. Its leaders stated that it had been At-

Tawhid’s acceptance of the principles of non-violence, democracy,

constitutionalism and support for the Moroccan monarchy that had allowed

it to join the MPDC and thus compete in elections. Nevertheless, the party

demonstrated that it was willing to make a stand on certain issues it felt to

be important – particularly those of a religious nature. On popular pan-

Islamic issues such as Palestine and Iraq, the PJD was outspoken but did not

find itself at variance with most of the other parties in Parliament. However,

on a number of domestic issues such as the charging of interest and the

position of women in Moroccan society the PJD took up positions that

brought it into conflict with the alternance government of Youssoufi. The

PJD criticized the government’s plans to introduce a micro-credit scheme

because it planned to charge interest on the sums loaned. More dramatically,

the party vociferously opposed draft plans to amend the existing Family

Status Code or Moudouwana which were part of a wider package of reforms

entitled the Plan for the Integration of Women. The party objected, on

religious grounds, to proposals to ban polygamy and unilateral repudiation

by husbands and to raise the minimum age for marriage. The leadership of

the PJD participated in a mass rally held in Casablanca in March 2000 to

protest against the changes and in opposition to a rally to support the

proposed changes held in Rabat the same day [Fariq al-Adala wa Tanmiya].



Increasing unhappiness with the Youssoufi government’s position on

these issues, together with what the party described as its disappointment

with the government’s failure to tackle the country’s social and economic

problems, led the PJD in October 2000 to abandon its position of ‘critical

support’ towards the government. Many critics of the party saw the move as

one that was electorally motivated, allowing the party time to develop a

powerful critique of the government and position itself as the principal

political alternative in the run-up to the 2002 elections. Indeed, the party

leadership spoke of the PJD being the ‘true opposition’ in the country – the

parties in the official opposition in Parliament having participated in

previous royalist administrations (interview: Othmani, 26 June 2002).

As the elections of September 2002 drew closer, the PJD was able to

draw up a balance sheet of its progress and achievements over the previous

five years and felt there was reason to be relatively happy with itself. At the

level of representation the party not only had a respectable presence in the

lower house of Parliament, but also had a member in the upper house of

councillors.1 At the local level, the party could count over 100 local

councillors and six local commune presidents, despite the fact that it had

not officially contested the original local elections of June 1997 (La Vie

Economique, 5 July 2002). Saad-Eddine Othmani, the party’s deputy

secretary-general, commented that over the past five years, the PJD had

made the transition from being a ‘small party to being a medium-sized one’

(interview: Othmani, 26 June 2002). In less tangible terms, the party had

slowly raised its public profile and had undoubtedly become one of the main

half-dozen parties in Morocco.

Al-Adl wa Ihsan

Morocco’s other significant Islamist organization is the Al-Adl wa Ihsan

(Justice and Spirituality) movement. Although it did not contest the

elections of either 1997 or 2002, the fact that Al-Adl was a far bigger

organization with a much larger support base than At-Tawhid wa al-Islah

and the PJD meant that it was still politically significant. The unusual

evolution of Al-Adl also marks it out as an interesting and rather different

kind of movement whose political approach and trajectory distinguish it

from most other Islamist movements across the Muslim world – including

those in Morocco itself.

Whereas At-Tawhid wa al-Islah’s origins can be traced back to

organizations that emerged in the late 1960s and early 1970s and which had

much in common with organizations such as the Muslim Brotherhood and

their offshoots in other countries, Al-Adl did not become a recognizable

organization until the 1980s and had few organizational or ideological links

with other movements elsewhere in the Muslim world. This was because


91med03.qxd 18-Mar-04 6:59 PM 7

Al-Adl was an organization that crystallized around the leadership and ideas

of a single individual. This individual, Abdeslam Yassine, a former school

inspector of modest origins from southern Morocco, had gained notoriety in

the 1970s by writing an open letter to the then king of Morocco, Hassan II,

in which he criticized the king and called on him to repent of his ways and

return to the truth of Islam. The audacity of the letter and its tone secured

Yassine a period in a secure mental asylum for daring to criticize the king

and his religious legitimacy which was officially and constitutionally

beyond question as a descendant of the Prophet Mohammed and Amir al-

Muminim (Commander of the Faithful). Yassine’s continued willingness to

challenge the monarchy, even on his release from custody, attracted support

and during the 1980s his followers grew from being a small group of

supporters to become a significant movement by the end of the decade

[Munson, 1993: 162–73; Shahin, 1997: 193–6].

Yassine spent virtually the entirety of the 1990s under house arrest.

However, the death of King Hassan II in July 1999 and the accession to the

throne of his son, Mohamed VI, signalled a change in the political

atmosphere. As well as facilitating the return of a number of political exiles

to Morocco, the new king tacitly assented to the lifting of the house arrest

on Yassine in May 2000. Since his release the now ageing ‘Sheikh’ has

toured the country, visiting supporters who during his period of house

arrest had built an extensive and well-structured organization. Although

officially unrecognized and prohibited from forming a political party,

Al-Adl has embarked on a number of political activities and campaigns.

It participated in the mass demonstration in Casablanca in March 2000

that protested against proposed changes to the Moudouwana. It also

organized large summer camps on a number of Morocco’s beaches in the

summer of 2000 and held a rally outside Parliament in November 2000.

Although all of these events had their own specific objectives, the overall

aim of all of these was, according to a senior member of the movement, to

make a political statement and show their presence (interview: N. Yassine,

5 July 2001).

In making its political presence known, Al-Adl has attracted the ire of

the authorities. A number of the beach gatherings of summer 2000 were

broken up by the authorities and the rally in front of Parliament in

November 2000 (which was held to protest against bans on the movement’s

newspapers) was violently broken up by police in riot gear. Al-Adl’s

continued critical stance towards the Moroccan regime and most notably

towards the central institution of the monarchy has thus ensured that it will

not be allowed to enter the legal political scene in the foreseeable future.

However, its substantial size and support mean that it is of weight on the

political scene despite not contesting the elections of 2002.



Relations between Al-Adl wa Ihsan and At-Tawhid wa Al-Islah and the

PJD have generally been good but not close. They have periodically

co-operated in common campaigns related to issues such as Palestine, and

the PJD campaigned in Parliament for the release of Abdeslam Yassine

from house arrest, but otherwise they have had no ongoing contacts or

co-ordination. The rather different historical and organizational origins of

the two movements have meant that they have pursued largely separate

political paths. Whereas At-Tawhid chose to enter the legal political field

and explicitly accept the existing political framework (fundamentally the

monarchy) in Morocco, Al-Adl has opted to remain outside the legal

political field in order to maintain its critique of the political system and, by

extension, the monarchy. Abdeslam Yassine and the leadership of Al-Adl

have stressed that the organization is not primarily a ‘political movement’

but rather a ‘social movement’ with emphasis put on preaching and study

and personal spiritual development rather than political activism (interview:

A. Yassine). Nevertheless, the movement formed a ‘political circle’ in 1998

to co-ordinate its political activities and continued to give interviews to the

domestic and foreign media concerning political developments in Morocco.

There are also ideological differences between the two movements.

Al-Adl wa Ihsan’s greater emphasis on personal spiritual development and

study (perhaps influenced by Yassine’s membership of a sufi brotherhood in

the 1960s) contrasts with the more orthodox and legalistic views of

At-Tawhid wa Al-Islah and the PJD. Al-Adl was notably less hardline on a

number of social issues, notably the status of women, than At-Tawhid and

the PJD (El País, 2 Oct. 2002, quoted in Demain, 5 Oct. 2002). At the same

time Al-Adl was itself clearly much more hardline on political issues in

terms of its critique of the existing political system, of which At-Tawhid

was much more accepting. This dichotomy between attitudes towards social

issues on the one hand and political issues on the other has produced an

interesting contrast between the movements.

Attitudes towards the Elections

The PJD

The modest but significant advances that the PJD had made both at the 1997

elections and thereafter meant that discussion about the party’s potential

performance in the elections of 2002 was already occurring in the media and

elsewhere before the 1997 Parliament was even halfway through.

Surprisingly, it was a debate that the PJD itself was reluctant to engage in.

When asked about how the party might perform in the elections, party

leaders were wont to play down the party’s chances. They emphasized



the party’s youth and relatively small size, which they said corresponded to

its standing and support in society generally, and predicted only a very

modest advance for the party (interview: Othmani, 7 June 2000). Moreover,

well before the elections of 2002, the PJD made it clear that – as in 1997 –

it would be fielding candidates in only a limited number of electoral

districts.

The PJD’s modesty about its electoral chances not only contrasted with

the pre-election rhetoric of most political parties but also seemed to run

counter to widespread predictions that the party was likely to perform well

at the forthcoming elections. Officially, the leadership of the PJD attributed

the modesty of its ambitions to the corresponding modesty of its resources,

which did not allow it to put up candidates in every district. More

informally, the party acknowledged that massive gains, or even victory, for

the PJD in the elections was not in its own interest (La Vie Economique, 5

July 2002). It was very aware of how closely the party’s progress was been

watched both in Morocco and abroad and how predictions about a strong

performance by the party had been greeted by unease in some quarters.

Such unease could rise to alarm should these predictions come true. Such

alarm could in turn lead to an unfolding of events that followed the pattern

of those in neighbouring Algeria just a decade earlier which saw the Islamist

party, the Front Islamique du Salut (FIS), banned and repressed following

its domination of the first round of voting in national legislative elections in

December 1991. Indeed, the shadow of the Algerian experience, and the

violence and chaos that was unleashed following the banning of the FIS and

the cancellation of elections, was one that hung long and heavy over

Morocco in general and the PJD in particular. Fear of reproducing the

‘Algerian scenario’ became a major concern for everyone – not least the

PJD itself. One leading PJD figure acknowledged to a French newspaper

that ‘the Algerian scenario is the phobia of all Moroccans’ (Le Figaro, 30

Sept. 2002].2 When asked what the party might be frightened of in seeking

to play down its chances, the deputy leader of the party replied: ‘We are

frightened of frightening people’ (interview: Othmani, 7 June 2000).

Nevertheless, despite being wary of being seen to do ‘too well’, the PJD

was well aware that the party stood to make significant advances in the

elections that could only help in furthering its agenda as an organization.

Al-Adl wa Ihsan

Al-Adl wa Ihsan’s exclusion from the party political scene and thus also

from the elections did not prevent the movement commenting on the

process. Although it was widely believed that if the movement were

allowed to form a political party it would contest the elections energetically,

the movement publicly distanced itself from the whole electoral process.



It declared the elections to be meaningless on two grounds. First, it argued

that as with previous elections in Morocco the voting and results would be

manipulated and rigged by the authorities. Abdelwahed El Moutawakkil,

the head of the movement’s Political Circle, stated that: ‘the results of

elections in Morocco are prepared beforehand. Therefore, what is the use in

participating?’ (interview: El Moutawakkil). Second, Al-Adl stated that

even if the elections were to be free and fair, they would elect people to an

institution – the Parliament – that had no real power: all meaningful power

remaining in the hands of the monarchy. Fathallah Arslane, a spokesman

and member of the Guiding Committee of the movement, argued:

A major question needs to be asked: what place do elections occupy

in the Moroccan political scene? Are the results of the elections likely

to change noticeably the balance of forces in our society? In analysing

the prerogatives of the representative institutions [in Morocco], we

will discover that elections will never determine the main direction of

the country [La Gazette du Maroc, 2 Sept. 2002].

The movement’s official position towards the elections was therefore one of

boycott – affecting disdain towards the whole process. Nadia Yassine, the

daughter of Abdeslam Yassine and a spokeswoman for the movement,

described the elections as a ‘non-event’ and maintained that ‘elections do

not make a democracy’ and that large-scale reform to the constitution and

the country’s institutions were needed before elections would become

meaningful (interview: N. Yassine, 27 June 2002).

The very different approaches of the two main Islamist movements, not

least towards the elections, inevitably led to leaders of each of the

movements commenting on the other’s position. Al-Adl wa Ihsan

commented that it respected the PJD and the sincerity of the party’s belief

that through participating in elections and being present in Parliament it

could have an impact. However, Al-Adl believed that this approach was

mistaken because the system would ensure that very little could be changed.

Indeed, in participating in the elections and in Parliament, the PJD risked

losing – alongside all the other parties – its credibility through failing to

deliver on its promise to bring change (interview: El Moutawakkil). Al-Adl

argued that even the PJD was aware of this and claimed that a PJD Member

of Parliament (MP) had told them that the party had limits placed on it in

Parliament, preventing it from raising ‘taboo’ subjects such as Palestine

(interview: N. Yassine, 5 July 2001).

For its part, the PJD countered that Al-Adl’s position left it detached

from the everyday realities of life in Morocco that needed to be tackled and

solved in a practical way by getting involved in the system. Abdelilah

Benkirane of that party argued that:



I think that it would be a very positive thing for Al-Adl wa Ihsan to

participate in the elections and in the institutions. This would allow

them to discover the difficult economic realities of the country. Our

involvement in national political life allowed us to confirm that the

economic margin for manoeuvre is very tight and particularly limited

[La Vie Economique, 5 July 2002].

He went on to reiterate what he saw as the essential difference in

perceptions between the two movements:

Once our brothers from Al-Adl wa Ihsan come down from their cloud

and decide to participate in the institutions, they will realize that the

central problem for Morocco is not the monarchy, but rather the

serious economic and social difficulties of the country. They will

equally understand that it is necessary to take the route of compromise

in order to preserve the balance and stability of the country [La Vie

Economique, 5 July 2002].

The Electoral Campaign

The Strategy of the PJD

The campaign for the legislative elections officially began on 14 September,

but inevitably had unofficially started well before then. Preparations for the

elections by the various political parties were rather different than at

previous elections because of the introduction of a new electoral system for

the lower and more powerful House of Representatives. The existing single-

member electoral districts were to be replaced by new multi-member

districts with members elected from lists presented by the political parties

and allocated according to each party’s share of the vote. In addition to

voting in these local electoral districts, there would also be a national poll

to select 30 women members that would similarly be selected from lists

drawn up by each of the political parties. The officially stated reason for

introducing these changes was that by creating fewer and much larger

electoral districts the perennial problem of vote-buying would be reduced –

few candidates being likely to have the resources necessary to buy sufficient

votes across the new enlarged districts. In addition, it was hoped that by

having voters vote for parties rather than individual candidates this would

help strengthen and rationalize Morocco’s traditionally weak and

balkanized party political map.

The PJD publicly welcomed these changes. Indeed the party was keen to

stress that it had been the first of the parties to demand the shift to

a proportional party list system – its leadership having presented



a memorandum to this effect one year earlier, in September 2001. The

party’s backing for the new system was partly based on its support of the

official view that the new election arrangements would reduce corruption

and shift the focus of the election away from individual candidates and

towards parties and their programmes (interview: Othmani, 26 June 2002).

It was also based on more partisan considerations. The PJD was aware that

the new system, with its focus on political parties, would favour those

parties that were well organized and had clear and well-defined identities

and agendas. The PJD not only fitted this description, but was also aware

that the vast majority of the other political parties had no real ideological

platform and usually relied for organization on the personal networks of

candidates at local level. Thus it stood to benefit from the new system.

Somewhat paradoxically, the new electoral arrangements also fitted in

with the PJD’s established political caution. The adoption of a proportional

electoral system virtually guaranteed that no individual party would be able

to secure a majority on its own in the new Parliament – something that was

much more possible under the former single-member system. It was

therefore highly unlikely that the PJD would find itself in the same position

that the FIS had in Algeria in 1991 where the party would be able to achieve

a crushing majority in the national legislature despite having received less

than half of the votes cast.3 However, to guard even further against being

seen to do ‘too well’, the PJD was consistent with its pre-campaign

statements that it would contest only a limited number of electoral districts.

At the beginning of September the party announced that it would be

contesting only 55 of the 91 local electoral districts. Although the PJD

pointed out that the percentage of electoral districts in which it was fielding

candidates had increased to 60 per cent from the 43 per cent it had contested

in the 1997 election, it was noticeable that this coverage was still far less

than that of most of the other political parties. A number of newspapers and

critics of the PJD alleged that the decision to field only a limited number of

candidates had been forced on the party by the Ministry of the Interior

(Demain, 21 Sept. 2002). However, the party leadership maintained that the

decision had been taken long in advance of the elections, in July 2001, and

had been taken within the party. Mustapha Ramid, the leader of the PJD’s

parliamentary group, argued:

In taking this decision, we considered it right to put the national

interest before partisan interest. It is perhaps true that this was also the

wish of the authorities, but I can assure you that no one else was

involved in our decision [Aujourd’hui Le Maroc, 1 Oct. 2002].

In referring to the ‘national interest’, Ramid was publicly acknowledging

that a sweeping PJD victory could have a destabilizing effect on Morocco.



This was something that the party had long been at pains to stress that it had

no desire to do. It was aware that one of the tacit conditions for its entry into

the political scene had been respect for the stability of the existing

Moroccan system. Interestingly, the party indicated that pressure to respect

that stability came not just from within the country but also from outside.

Benkirane remarked to a French newspaper that a ‘landslide’ for the party

at the elections would not be ‘politically tolerated, neither domestically nor

abroad’ (Le Figaro, 30 Sept. 2002).

In spite of this caution, the PJD proceeded to fight a vigorous and

professional election campaign. Its local campaigns were well organized

with simple and clear messages to the voters. At the national level the

party’s polished television broadcasts compared well with the wooden and

badly prepared efforts of many of the other parties. While the party was

clearly aware of the dangers of achieving too good a result in the elections,

it was also conscious of the need to make healthy advances in order to

demonstrate its strength and credibility and obtain a sizeable presence in the

new Parliament. Candidates put up by the party were noted, as before in

1997, for their high levels of education – 81 per cent of them having

achieved at least an undergraduate university degree (7 A Dire, 20 Sept.

2002). This contrasted markedly with the other parties, all of which fielded

slates of candidates with much lower average levels of education, including

some who were actually illiterate. The process of candidate selection for the

PJD was also rather different from other parties, with a greater say in the

selection being had by local party branches and with only a limited role

being played by the national leadership.4 The PJD claimed this led to the

selection of more popular and more loyal candidates who were dedicated to

serving both the party and the local area. It was noticeable that the

leadership of nearly all the other parties ‘parachuted’ candidates into local

areas.5 Such candidates had often little connection with the local area, many

being defectors from other parties.

Conflict with the USFP

One feature of the election campaign was the evident and intense hostility

between the PJD and the USFP. This mutual antipathy predated the official

campaign and had been in evidence for some months and arguably since the

PJD had taken the decision to withdraw its support from the USFP-led

government of Abderrahmane El Youssoufi in October 2000. Whether

rooted in ideological differences or political rivalry, the bad blood between

the two parties showed itself in a number of bitter exchanges between them

– usually through their newspapers and occasionally in Parliament itself –

from the middle of 2002. In May members of the USFP accused the PJD of

misuse of charitable funds donated to help the Palestinian people. The PJD



vehemently denied the accusation and, aware of the popular feeling related

to the Palestinian issue, responded by protesting against the USFP’s

decision to allow representatives of Israel’s Labour Party to attend the

meeting of the Socialist International hosted by the USFP and held in

Casablanca later that same month. Tensions continued to mount through the

summer months with the USFP newspaper Al-Ittihad Al-Ichtiraki accusing

the PJD of making illegal use of the country’s mosques, particularly during

Friday prayers, to campaign and spread its message.6 The PJD responded by

accusing the USFP of publishing ‘slanderous’ stories ‘stuffed with lies’ and

publicly voiced its fears that the USFP would use its position in government

to seek to manipulate the elections in its own favour (Maroc Hebdo

International, 12 July 2002; At-Tajdid, 20 Sept. 2002).

Beyond public accusations, the PJD was also highly suspicious of the

number of stories that began to appear in various newspapers during the

summer of 2002 relating to supposedly mounting incidents of Islamist

extremism across Morocco. Although the accounts of murders, abductions

and beatings were related to the alleged existence of an extremist

organization named variously ‘Salafiyya Jihadia’ or ‘Al-Takfir wa Al-

Hijra’ and not explicitly to the PJD, the party believed the reports were

designed to damage it by spreading fear about Islamist extremism in the

run-up to the elections. Some newspapers carried pictures of members of

the PJD (and Al-Adl wa Ihsan) alongside reports of violent incidents while

only stating in the text of the report itself that the attacks were unconnected

with the party. The PJD accused the USFP and its allies of using these

stories to tar all Islamists with the same broad brush of violence and

extremism, despite the fact that the party explicitly condemned violence and

had, since the 1980s, committed itself to peaceful and constitutional means.

Even before these incidents, the secretary-general of the party of the PJD,

Abdelkrim Al-Khatib, had accused ‘enemies’ of the party of seeking to use

the 11 September 2001 attacks on the USA to ‘demonize’ Islamists in

general and the PJD in particular (Maroc Hebdo International, 12 July

2002).

Platform and Agenda

The PJD published its policy agenda for the elections in a document entitled

‘Towards a Better Morocco’ that set out the party’s priorities, which it

categorized into five main themes: authenticity, sovereignty, democracy,

justice and development. Under the heading of authenticity, the party

advocated, unsurprisingly, a greater emphasis on Islam in education and

civic culture to reinforce Morocco’s cultural identity as part of an overall

effort to ‘moralize’ public life in Morocco. ‘Sovereignty’ constituted an

obligatory nod towards nationalism and Morocco’s claim on the Western



Sahara. For democracy, the party advocated constitutional changes that

would strengthen the role and powers of the prime minister and Parliament

to enable them to carry out their respective tasks more effectively. For

justice, the party stated itself to be in favour of a thorough overhaul of what

Al-Khatib called the ‘Augean Stables’ of the Moroccan justice system,

which the party believed was riven by massive corruption and a culture of

favouritism and privilege. The party advocated full independence of the

judiciary and greater emphasis on the defence of public freedoms (Maroc

Hebdo International, 12 July 2002). On the issue of the economy and

‘development’, the party was as unspecific as most other Islamist parties on

the subject, beyond arguing for the creation of Islamic banks that did not

charge interest, and expressed reservations about opening up the Moroccan

economy too far to the forces of globalization. Nevertheless, the party made

the outgoing government’s failure to make inroads into the levels of poverty

and deprivation in Morocco a major theme of its pronouncements (7 A Dire,

20 Sept. 2002).7

In putting forward its programme, the PJD was clearly anxious to dispelsome of the negative stereotypes that existed about the agenda of Islamists,particularly those relating to women and to criminal punishments. The partymaintained that it had no intention of imposing the veil on women. It was astance that appeared to be borne out by the fact that one of the party’scandidates near the head of its list for the 30 seats reserved for women, TouriaGherbal, did not wear a veil.8 As secretary-general of the party, AbdelkrimAl-Khatib was also pleased to inform interviewers that neither his wife norhis daughter wore a veil (interview: Al-Khatib). This moderate image was,however, called into question following a statement by Mustapha Ramid tothe Associated Press agency in which the leader of the party’s parliamentarygroup declared that: ‘In the long term we are for the application of the Shariawhich includes being for amputations for thieves’ (Associated Press, quotedin Aujourd’hui Le Maroc, 30 Sept. 2002). The reaction of other seniormembers of the party following the controversy this statement provoked,indicated not just the existence of ideological divisions within the party, butalso provided further evidence of the desire of the party to present a sociallymoderate image. Saad-Eddine Othmani and Abdelilah Benkirane gave aseries of interviews arguing that Ramid’s remarks had been ‘misinterpreted’and that the application of Islamic punishments (houdouds) was not part ofthe PJD agenda (Le Journal, 28 Sept. 2002; L’Economiste, 3 Oct. 2002;As-Sahifa Al-Ousbouiya, 5 Oct. 2002). Both went on to stress, probably notdisingenuously, that the party’s real priorities lay with the issues of justice,corruption and economic development rather than the veil or amputations,Othmani stating that: ‘We have already said, and we repeat, to the Moroccanpeople: our party wants to prioritize the economic and social development ofthe country, not the Sharia’ (Maroc Hebdo International, 4 Oct. 2002).9



The Results

Speculation about exactly how well the PJD would do in the election came

to an end with the announcement of the full results of the voting over the

days that followed the polling day itself – 27 September. The party was

shown to have won 38 seats in the local districts with an additional four

seats being awarded to it from the national women’s list, producing a grand

total of 42 seats for it in the next Parliament. This was by any standards a

very good result for the party and apparently matched the upper end of their

expectations (La Vie Economique, 5 July 2002; Maroc Ouest, 1 Oct. 2002).

In statistical terms, the party had more than quadrupled the number of seats

it had secured at the 1997 election. The approximately 570,000 votes the

party had attracted represented over ten per cent of the popular vote. In party

political terms, the PJD had progressed from having one of the smaller

groups in Parliament to being the third largest party there, only a few seats

behind the great historic parties of the Istiqlal (48 seats) and the USFP (50

seats). In the local districts the party performed well across the country, but

particularly well – as it had done in 1997 – in some of the large cities:

notably Tangier, Tetouan and particularly Casablanca. In Casablanca –

Morocco’s largest city and its economic capital – the PJD took over a third

of the available seats across the seven electoral districts that encompassed

the city. In several districts the party took two seats – a significant feat in a

proportional electoral system. The PJD’s dominance over the other parties

in the city was indicated by the fact that it secured nearly as many votes as

the Istiqlal and the USFP combined. As one Moroccan newspaper

commented, ‘Casablanca is from now on an Islamist electoral fiefdom’ (La

Vie Economique, 4 Oct. 2002).

The remarkable advances made by the PJD became the main focus of

media attention – both domestically and internationally – following the

announcement of the results, there being no other big changes to Morocco’s

traditionally fragmented political field. There was discussion about why the

party had done so well. Some commentators sought to play down what was

widely referred to as the Islamist ‘breakthrough’, pointing to the low voter

turnout of 52 per cent (which was reduced to just 43 per cent when the large

number of spoilt ballots was taken into consideration). This low turnout

allowed a well-organized party like the PJD to perform well by mobilizing

all of its available supporters. As one Moroccan daily remarked, ‘In fact the

breakthrough of the PJD results more from the total mobilization of its

electors than from an increase in [support for] Islamism’ (Aujourd’hui Le

Maroc, 30 Sept. 2002). In other words, a higher voter turnout would have

progressively reduced the gains made by the PJD whose performance in the

elections represented its maximum strength.



Despite the above considerations, it could not be denied that large

numbers of people had turned out and voted for the PJD on election day.

Newspaper interviews of voters produced a variety of different profiles of

the sort of people who had voted PJD and reasons why they had supported

the party. These ranged from people who were supportive of efforts to

reinforce religious values in Moroccan society through to those who saw the

party as the strongest supporter of the Palestinian cause and those who

simply wished to express their disillusionment with the performance of the

outgoing Youssoufi government. A large number of people seemed to be

appreciative of the social and educational work the charitable associations

linked to the party had done in Morocco’s poorest areas over the preceding

years. Many others cited the honesty and educational levels of the PJD

candidates as factors motivating them to vote for the party (La Gazette du

Maroc, 7 Oct. 2002). Significantly, there was evidence that the PJD had

even attracted the support of otherwise fairly secularized voters who had

voted for the party in recognition of efforts made by the party’s MPs to

improve life in the areas in which they had been elected in 1997 – MPs from

other parties usually being notorious for their absence from their local areas

once elected.

Given the diverse reasons that appeared to motivate PJD voters, together

with the party’s well-run campaign and the parallel weakness of the other

parties, it was perhaps surprising that the party had not done even better

than it had. That the party had performed so well despite covering just 60

per cent of the electoral districts (compared to 100 per cent coverage by

both the USFP and the Istiqlal) raised questions as to how well it would

have performed had it presented candidates in all of the 91 districts.

Questions were also raised about whether the PJD had actually done better

than had been officially recorded in the districts it did contest. As in the

previous election, the PJD complained of electoral ‘irregularities’ that had

damaged the party’s performance and which the party made official

complaints about. According to Saad-Eddine Othmani, these irregularities

ranged from threats against candidates and instances of violence through to

more usual allegations of vote-buying (Maroc Ouest, 1 Oct. 2002). The

party press also alleged that officials had interfered in the electoral process

in several areas, preventing candidates from travelling to meetings and

preventing meetings from being held (At-Tajdid, 16 Sept. 2002).10 However,

in spite of these alleged irregularities, the leadership of the PJD made a

point of stating that these were isolated incidents and that they were

satisfied with the overall running of the election. The good result achieved

by the PJD was evidence, in their view, of the relative cleanliness and

fairness of the election (Aujourd’hui Le Maroc, 1 Oct. 2002).11 They

acknowledged that what irregularities had occurred did not affect the global



outcome of the election and that in the worst case the PJD was deprived of

no more than ‘two or three’ extra seats (Maroc Ouest, 1 Oct. 2002).

In spite of the PJD’s overall satisfaction with both the conduct of the

election and the results they achieved, stories began to emerge in the

aftermath of the election in some of Morocco’s more critical newspapers

suggesting that the PJD had been the victim of a more comprehensive and

official attempt to restrict its advances. A number of journalists and other

observers had been suspicious of the long delay that occurred between the

closing of the polling booths on the evening of Friday 27 September and the

announcement by the Ministry of the Interior of the official results.

Announcement of the full results was officially scheduled for early Saturday

morning, but none was made until late on the Saturday and even then these

were only partial results for the local districts. Full results for the local

districts did not emerge until late on the Sunday and the outcome of the

polling for the national women’s list was not made public until the Monday.

The official reason given for the delay was the unexpected length of time it

had taken to calculate the proportional quotas in the admittedly complicated

multi-member local electoral districts. However, some newspapers alleged

that the delay was in reality due to the authorities’ need to have time to alter

the voting figures to produce results more to their liking. Specifically, it was

argued that the authorities wanted to alter the voting figures of the PJD,

which had done far better than anyone had expected. It was suggested that

the results of voting in the local districts showed that the PJD had won 48

seats rather than the 38 it was eventually officially credited with. Similarly,

results from the national women’s list also allegedly showed the party to

have a substantial lead over the other parties.12

It was then argued by one newspaper that the unacceptability – not least

abroad – of having an Islamist party emerge as the dominant political party

from the elections led to a hurried and covert operation to ‘massage’ the real

results of the poll. It was alleged that Abdelkrim Al-Khatib, the secretary-

general of the PJD, was flown urgently to the Royal Palace in Marrakech

where the dilemma was explained to him. Conscious of the priority of not

provoking fear and instability, it was alleged that the leadership of the PJD

acquiesced to an official plan to reduce the number of seats officially won

by the party. Seats won by the PJD were then redistributed to other parties

(principally the USFP and the Istiqlal in Rabat and Casablanca) whose

leaders co-operated fully in the operation (Demain, 5 Oct. 2002).

For its part, the PJD made no official response to these remarkable

accusations which, given the history of electoral manipulation in Morocco,

could quite easily have been true. The party did record its unhappiness that the

results in a number of the local areas were not made known, as they should

have been, to the local representatives of the party (the process verbaux)



before they were transmitted to the national level (Aujourd’hui Le Maroc,

1 Oct. 2002). However, apart from observing that the delay in releasing

the results had the unfortunate effect of fuelling rumours about

manipulation, the party leadership made no other statement regarding

official manipulation of the figures (Le Journal, 28 Sept. 2002). For some

journalists this silence merely confirmed the PJD’s complicity in the whole

operation.

Al-Adl wa Ihsan and the Results

Following the announcement of the official results, the leaders of Al-Adl wa

Ihsan were inevitably approached for their response to the outcome of the

election. The movement’s spokespeople reiterated their view that the

elections were not free and fair and that the Parliament produced by them

would, in any event, not be able to change anything of any significance.

Nadia Yassine commented that the only thing transparent in the election had

been the ballot boxes themselves. Despite the official disdain it held for the

whole process, Al-Adl did, however, take time to draw attention to the

advances made by the PJD. Nadia Yassine voiced the view that the PJD had

polled better than it was officially credited with and certainly outpolled the

USFP, which was officially placed ahead of the PJD (El País, 2 Oct. 2002;

quoted in Demain, 5 Oct. 2002). Significantly, Al-Adl portrayed the gains

made by the PJD as an advance for Islamism generally. Fathallah Arslane

commented that the PJD’s gains were ‘a result that does not surprise us

because we always said that if the elections were organized in a transparent

fashion, a majority would be achieved by the Islamist tendency’

(Aujourd’hui Le Maroc, 1 Oct. 2002). In this way, it appeared that despite

their rejection of the elections, the movement wanted to share to some

degree in the victory of the PJD.

Al-Adl wa Ihsan’s apparent desire to take some of the credit for the PJD’s

‘breakthrough’ raised the question of whether Al-Adl had lent its support,

tacitly or officially, to the PJD in the election. There was significant media

speculation as to whether Al-Adl had issued an order to its supporters to vote

for the PJD. Before the election, both had made it clear that this had not

occurred at any level. The PJD maintained that they were fighting the

election on their own, while Al-Adl stuck to their established position of

boycotting the whole process. However, in the wake of the election, while

the PJD did not shift its position, there appeared to be a slight shift in the

position adopted by Al-Adl. Although reaffirming that the movement had

made no official change in its position of ignoring the elections, Arslane

stated that the PJD and Al-Adl shared some common ground ‘and it is very

likely that the PJD benefited from this’ (Aujourd’hui Le Maroc, 1 Oct. 2002).



Nadia Yassine commented that Al-Adl wa Ihsan supporters had almost

certainly voted for the PJD in cities such as Casablanca, Tangier and

Tetouan – thus explaining the party’s good performances in these places (El

País, 2 Oct. 2002, quoted in Demain, 5 Oct. 2002).

For its part, the PJD played down any role Al-Adl wa Ihsan may have

had in its electoral victories. Mustapha Ramid argued that most Al-Adl

supporters had deliberately not registered to vote and therefore could not

have voted and that any support that might have been given to the PJD

would have undermined the credibility of Al-Adl’s official position of

boycott. He suggested that any directive given by the leadership of Al-Adl

to its supporters to vote for the PJD would have netted a maximum of

50,000 votes, which would not have made a huge difference to the overall

result of the election. He stated that the only help that Al-Adl had given to

the PJD was to not physically bring its supporters out onto the streets to

demand a boycott (Aujourd’hui Le Maroc, 1 Oct. 2002).

The exact truth of the matter is difficult to divine. It seems likely that

while the leadership of Al-Adl wa Ihsan almost certainly stuck both publicly

and privately to their policy of boycott, many of the movement’s rank and

file and ordinary supporters may have voted for the PJD. The presence of

Islamist candidates on the ballot together with the raised profile of the party

during the campaign may have proved too alluring for many followers of

Sheikh Yassine who were either unaware or uncomprehending of the

broader strategic rationale for the movement’s boycott of the election.

The statements made by the two movements in the aftermath of the

election were revealing of a growing rivalry between them. By achieving a

good score in the elections, the PJD had clearly attracted public attention

and thus strengthened its claim to be the most important Islamist

organization in Morocco. In the view of one newspaper, the largely middle-

class PJD looked to broaden the base of its support and in participating in

the election had started to eat into the much more ‘popular’ base of Al-Adl

wa Ihsan (Le Journal, 5 Oct. 2002). If this was indeed what had happened,

Al-Adl clearly had grounds for concern and perhaps risked losing support

and its pre-eminent position to its Islamist rival. Al-Adl was anxious to

stress its ideological differences with the PJD but, despite this, it was

unlikely that the mass of ordinary, less-educated Moroccans were going to

pay too close attention to such nuances. The leadership of Al-Adl thus saw

the wisdom in the movement not totally dissociating itself from the election

and its results, realizing that there was a risk here that it could sideline itself.



The New Government

Once the results of the election of 27 September became known, the next

issue of importance became the formation and composition of the new

government. Having become the third largest force in the new House of

Representatives, the PJD became a strong contender for inclusion in a new

coalition government.

The question for the party became whether it would in fact want to

participate in any government. There were a number of ideological and

strategic considerations to be weighed up. The party had always made clear

that its ultimate intention, like that of any political party, had always been

to participate in government. As Othmani commented, ‘A party exists to

govern’ (interview: Othmani, 26 June 2002). However, the PJD’s leadership

was aware of the dangers of entering into a coalition government where its

own influence would be restricted to a few ministerial portfolios and where

the party could find itself tied to a government that – like the previous

Youssoufi one – proved to be unable to achieve what it had promised. In this

way the PJD could risk losing its credibility and popularity. The alternative

path for the party was to join the opposition. For many of the party’s leaders,

this option had the attraction of allowing the PJD to dominate the opposition

and criticize a government that would inevitably run into the same problems

as previous ones. By positioning itself as the main opposition force, the PJD

would place itself in a potentially very advantageous position for the next

set of legislative elections, due in five years time, when it could portray

itself as offering an alternative government.

The PJD was also conscious of the fact that by entering government, it

could leave the field free to Al-Adl wa Ihsan to become the main opposition

force (albeit outside Parliament) in the country. In spite of this

consideration, Al-Adl, for its part, counselled the PJD to not participate in

any new governing coalition. Fathallah Arslane stated:

We would prefer that our brothers in the PJD not join the government

because they will be discredited when they are not able to achieve

what they have promised their voters. By contrast, in opposition, their

voice will be listened to more and the Islamist trend will be

strengthened [Aujourd’hui Le Maroc, 1 Oct. 2002].

In this way Arslane appeared to be indicating that any advance for the PJD

would be seen as benefiting the Islamist movement as a whole and not

something that could strengthen the PJD at the expense of Al-Adl wa Ihsan.

In more tangible terms, the PJD also had to consider which parties it

might want to co-operate with if it were to enter government – or indeed

opposition. The elections had produced as fragmented a party political map



as had emerged from the 1997 election, with no party winning more than 15

per cent of the seats in the House of Representatives. This dictated that any

new government was likely to be a coalition of a large number of different

parties. It appeared probable that the new government would be constructed

around one or both of the two largest parties: the USFP and the Istiqlal. This

fact narrowed the options for the PJD in the eyes of many of its leaders. For

a number of senior figures in the party, the possibility of entering into

government alongside the USFP was not to be considered given that party’s

bitter attacks on the PJD in the months leading up to the election. In addition

to this, both Saad-Eddine Othmani and Abdelkrim Al-Khatib declared the

two parties’ programmes to be ‘diametrically opposed’, with Al-Khatib

stating that the USFP ‘are for secularism, whereas we are attached to our

traditions and to our Islamic culture’ (Maroc Hebdo International, 12 July

2002; Maroc Ouest, 1 Oct. 2002). By contrast, the PJD had much warmer

relations with the Istiqlal party. The old nationalist party’s religious roots

made it much more acceptable to the Islamists, a fact that the PJD made

clear in interviews and statements. The PJD also noted that the Istiqlal’s

main newspaper Al Alam had noticeably refrained from reporting on the

arrests of Islamist extremists during the previous summer – reports which

the PJD believed the USFP and its allies had sought to exploit through their

own press to damage the PJD. From its side, the Istiqlal seemed uncertain

of how it should best deal with the PJD – statements from the party’s

leadership concerning the possible future relationship ranging from the

sceptical to the warm. Nevertheless, leaders from the two parties met in the

days following the election to explore the possibility of co-operating in

government together.13

In the event the PJD decided at a meeting of its National Council on 20

October 2002 not to participate in the new government. A majority of the

party’s leaders concluded, after a lively debate, that the benefits of being the

strongest opposition party outweighed any gains to be made by becoming

part of a governing coalition. The decision was eased by the fact that the

party had not at that stage been officially invited to join any future

governing coalition, although its representatives had met with the prime

minister. When the composition of the new government was finally

announced – formed once again out of a heterogeneous mix of six different

parties – the PJD was left as the largest single party in the opposition.

Already in the early months of the new government, the party began to

establish itself as the main and most coherent critic of the new

administration. However, it stressed that its opposition was ‘not systematic’

but based on the policies put forward by the new government, and it

reserved the right to change this stance in the future (At-Tajdid, 22 Oct.

2002; Ashark Al-Awsat, 11 Nov. 2002).



Conclusions

The elections of September 2002 marked an interesting stage in the

evolution of Morocco’s Islamist movement as well as in the country’s wider

political development. The elections certainly did not mark a watershed, nor

were they expected to in a country where a gradual and cautious approach

to change is valued by nearly all political actors. However, at the time of

writing, the full effects of the election are still emerging.

For the PJD, the election must be judged with much satisfaction. The

party succeeded in making substantial gains at the election and became one

of the largest parties in Parliament. At the same time, its victories were

sufficiently modest to avoid provoking the sort of levels of unease within

the regime that might lead to official attempts to restrict or even suppress

the party. The PJD’s cautious approach to its own political progress has

clearly helped in the achievement of such an equilibrium. The party’s

evident lack of haste is an indication of its belief that time is on its side.

A number of observers in the aftermath of the 2002 election stated their

view that the PJD’s moment would come at the time of the next legislative

elections – the party having positioned itself well for potential victory in

that poll. Others noted that the party’s time might come sooner than that in

the local elections scheduled for the second half of 2003.

Such predictions, however, need to be heavily qualified. First, and most

important, it should never be forgotten that despite the liberalizing reforms

of recent years, political power still remains firmly in the hands of the

Makhzen or power structures that surround the Royal Palace. The Palace

still reserves the right, both constitutionally and in practice, of veto over the

future development of the Moroccan political scene. The appointment by

King Mohamed VI of a non-party technocrat, Driss Jettou, as prime minister

in the aftermath of the elections was a timely reminder to the political

parties (who were already claiming the post for their own nominees) of the

power and persistence of the royal prerogative. The constitutional

subservience of the national Parliament to the king, and the much greater

powers of the royally-appointed regional governors and walis compared to

the elected local authorities, puts in proper perspective any gains made by

any party at elections in Morocco. Perhaps more than any of the other

parties, the PJD is conscious of this central reality. It remains fully aware of

the fact that it has been afforded entry to the Moroccan political scene on

the sufferance of the authorities after years of petitioning to be let in. It

knows that if it were to step outside the agreed boundaries set for it by the

Moroccan regime it could risk being ejected from the legal arena. That said,

both the PJD and the Moroccan authorities must know that such a move

could have a potentially highly destabilizing effect on Moroccan politics



and invite comparisons with the banning and exclusion of the FIS in Algeria

in 1992 and the disastrous events that developed from this.

One Moroccan newspaper was daring enough to question whether the

elections of 2002 marked the end of the ‘Moroccan exception’ with regard

to Islamism. For many years academics and Makhzen functionaries alike

had explained the relative weakness of the country’s Islamist movements by

reference to the religious standing of the Moroccan monarch as a

descendant of the Prophet Mohammed and Amir al-Muminim (Commander

of the Faithful). The strong performance of the PJD was seen as further

evidence of the weakening of the monarch’s monopoly of politico-religious

power and expression. As the newspaper commented, ‘the status of the

Commander of the Faithful has not prevented the Islamization of the

Moroccan political field’ (Le Journal, 28 Sept. 2002). Some academics,

however, have always questioned whether the religious dimension of the

Moroccan monarch’s powers was ever as influential at the popular level as

was suggested in the official discourse. It is argued that it was the

application of more tangible methods of social and political control that was

more traditionally useful in keeping Morocco’s Islamists in check (Munson,

1993: 115–48). This would suggest that the apparent expansion of Islamist

sentiment and activity in Morocco has more to do with a loosening of

existing political controls than with any diminution in the religious standing

of the king.

Although the elections of 2002 put the PJD fully in the political and

media spotlight, it should not be forgotten that the party represents only part

of the broader Islamist movement. Before the election it was acknowledged,

even by the PJD itself, that it was not the largest movement in the country

– that honour belonging to Al-Adl wa Ihsan. In the aftermath of the election,

Al-Adl and its leaders must wait and see whether its strategy of boycotting

the elections has brought it dividends in terms of it remaining the only large

political force outside of a weak and discredited formal political arena, or

whether its policy has in reality led to its marginalization from concrete

political debate.

Attention should also be paid to the other smaller Islamist organizations

and groups that exist alongside the two main organizations of the PJD and

Al-Adl wa Ihsan – particularly those of a more radical and extremist nature.

This was something that became dramatically apparent following the

suicide bomb attacks on five targets in Casablanca on the night of 16 May

2003. The attribution of these attacks to radical Islamist groupings – such as

Salafiyya Jihadia – in the city raised questions as to the size and influence

of these groups and the extent to which they had links with organizations

such as At-Tawhid wa Al-Islah and Al-Adl wa Ihsan. While the first of these

questions was still in the process of being answered in the summer of 2003,



clear links with the PJD and Al-Adl wa Ihsan were highly improbable given

the two organizations’ commitment to non-violent means ever since their

creation. Indeed, Al-Adl wa Ihsan, in particular, has come into conflict with

many of these elements whose extremist ideas the movement condemns as

a ‘virus’ in the Muslim world and who in return have denounced Yassine

and his daughter as non-Muslim (interview: N. Yassine, 5 July 2001). These

differences, however, have not prevented secularist elements in the press

and the other political parties from asserting that both Al-Adl and the PJD

have served to create a favourable climate for such violent extremism

through their radical and often anti-western public discourses. (All five

locations attacked in Casablanca were linked to western or Jewish interests

and communities in the city). There have been calls for a restriction on the

activities of both movements as part of a wider strategy aimed at rooting out

extremism and preventing a repetition of the attacks of 16 May. Although

there was no open condemnation by the authorities of either organization,

both have come under greater unofficial pressure in the wake of the attacks.

Al-Adl wa Ihsan has complained of increased harassment of its members

and activities. For its part, the PJD has made changes to both the senior

leadership of the party and At-Tawhid wa al-Islah, replacing more radical

and outspoken figures with more circumspect individuals. Although the

party claimed these changes were routine, they undoubtedly came in

response to pressure resulting from the fallout of the events of 16 May.14

Both the PJD and Al-Adl wa Ihsan unambiguously condemned the

bombings but both stressed that they further underlined the importance of

combating the poverty and alienation that they believed were the root causes

of the attacks – nearly all of the young suicide-bombers having come from

the poorest and most marginalized areas of the big cities, notably

Casablanca itself. Both also claimed that more moderate Islamist

organizations, such as themselves, represented the best chance of

undermining support for radical groups such as Salafiyya Jihadia, by

involving the more marginalized and younger elements of Moroccan society

in their own structures. However, only Al-Adl wa Ihsan went as far as to

suggest that before 16 May, the Moroccan authorities had tacitly

encouraged the activities of such extremist groups as a means of

undermining support for Al-Adl (interview: Arslane).

Overall, the Casablanca attacks created a much more difficult political

environment for both organizations. As well as providing ammunition for

Islamism’s enemies in the press, the other political parties and, arguably,

also within the Palace, the genuinely popular revulsion that greeted the

attacks may well work to reduce popular support for Islamism generally.

Indeed the timing of the attacks could not have been worse for both

movements coming not only in the run-up to the local elections but also in



the wake of the war in Iraq which had stoked popular pan-Islamic sentiment

to new heights. Moreover, the attacks of 16 May also facilitated the easy

passage of a new and draconian anti-terrorism law through Parliament.

Initially opposed to the new measures, the PJD felt politically obliged to

support the legislation in the wake of the attacks in order to avoid the

accusation of being somehow ‘supportive’ of terrorism. The party also

indicated that it would be fielding fewer candidates than originally planned

in the upcoming local elections. In the event, the party fielded candidates in

just 18 per cent of the constituencies contested in the elections held for local

authorities on 12 September 2003. Despite this low figure, the party

carefully targeted those, mainly urban, areas where the party had performed

strongly in the legislative elections. It was rewarded with impressive results

in the districts where it fielded candidates, indicating that the party’s core

following had been apparently unaffected by the fallout from the events of

16 May and had turned out again strongly to support PJD candidates

wherever they had been fielded. The party even succeeded in winning the

mayorship in several small and medium-sized towns.

The future evolution of Morocco’s Islamist movement is difficult to

judge beyond the observation that it is unlikely to see any sudden or

dramatic developments – the events of 16 May 2003 notwithstanding. Much

will depend on the PJD’s performance as the dominant party in the

opposition in Parliament and whether this will pave the way for future

successes at the ballot box or whether the party will see its credibility

damaged by its involvement in a constitutionally weak institution. For Al-

Adl wa Ihsan, it must wait and see how things inside the system evolve and

whether popular disillusionment with the failings of official politics (as

indicated by the low turnout and high number of spoilt ballots in the

election) will strengthen support for their own position. The movement is

also aware that the advancing age of its founder and spiritual leader,

Abdeslam Yassine, might lead to a crisis of succession and identity in the

not-so-distant future. However, Al-Adl’s leaders are anxious to stress the

well-developed structures of the movement that will give it life long beyond

that of its historic leader.

At a broader level, the case of Moroccan Islamism appears to sit

uneasily with Gilles Kepel’s widely cited thesis that Islamism as a

phenomenon is in global decline, owing mainly to the parting of the ways

of two of its most important social support bases: the urban poor and the

religious urban bourgeoisie [Kepel, 2002]. Although this argument is

persuasive when applied to most of the rest of the Arab and Muslim world,

the perceptible growth in manifestations of conservative Islamic behaviour

and dress in many of Morocco’s major cities over recent years suggests

growing support in Morocco for Islamist movements such as the PJD and



Al-Adl wa Ihsan. Nevertheless, one could argue that the late development

of a strong Islamist movement in Morocco, when compared to most other

Arab states, suggests that Kepel’s thesis will also eventually be supported

by developments in Morocco. There is perhaps simply a time lag in the

development of Islamism in Morocco with the kingdom being at the

evolutionary stage most other states (such as Algeria and Tunisia) were ten

years earlier. In Morocco the political allegiances of Kepel’s ‘pious

bourgeoisie’ largely remain with the Istiqlal party rather than with the

Islamists – although with the old nationalist party’s continued presence in

government, this could change. Support for an Islamist alternative is clearly

growing among Morocco’s urban poor but is divided between the PJD and

Al-Adl wa Ihsan. As has been shown, Al-Adl, with its more populist

agenda, currently appears to have the upper hand in the competition for the

allegiance of this group, but the PJD’s presence and success in elections

could alter this situation. Nevertheless, Kepel’s assertion that the resort to

violence by more radical elements in the Islamist movements in other states

(notably Egypt and Algeria) alienated more mainstream elements (such as

the pious bourgeoisie), and thus weakened Islamism generally, seems

strikingly relevant to Morocco in the wake of the suicide bombings of 16

May.

At the international and regional level, parallels have been drawn

between the advances made by the PJD in the elections in Morocco and the

success of the Islamically-orientated AK party in Turkey’s general election

a matter of weeks later in November. However, besides the close timing of

the two elections, the religious hue of both parties and the sharing of a name

(AK is the acronym for Adalet ve Kalki•nma, ‘Justice and Development’ in

Turkish), the parallels are in reality fairly limited. First, the AK party,

although officially formed in 2001, has a much longer history of political

involvement than the Moroccan PJD. Forerunner parties to the AK have

been present in the Turkish Parliament since the 1970s and one, the Welfare

(Refah) Party, was the lead partner in a coalition government in 1996–97.

Second, the Turkish AK includes a number of established political figures

recruited from other political parties. Morocco’s PJD has attracted defectors

from other parties, but besides the party’s secretary-general, Abdelkrim Al-

Khatib, inherited from the MPDC, no other figure of political weight has

joined the PJD and it remains short on political experience.15 Third, as a

result of its political experience and the presence of figures drawn from

other parties, the AK in Turkey articulates a much more moderate and less

exclusively religious political agenda than its Moroccan namesake. This is

also undoubtedly partly a function of Turkey’s secular constitution, a point

made by Saad-Eddine Othmani of the Moroccan PJD who, following a visit

to Turkey in June 2003, stated that the AK was officially a secular party



while the PJD was not (interview: Othmani, 23 July 2003). Fourth, and

perhaps most important, Turkey’s Justice and Development Party actually

won the election by securing a parliamentary majority in the November

2002 elections, in contrast to the Moroccan PJD, which won control of just

13 per cent of the seats in the House of Representatives. Moreover, the AK

won control of an institution – the Turkish Parliament – that wields real and

(with the important caveat of significant military influence and occasional

actual intervention) theoretically ultimate political power in the state. In

monarchical Morocco, as has been said, the Parliament neither

constitutionally nor in practice plays such a dominant role.

Nevertheless, both Turkey and Morocco provide examples of states that

have sought to accommodate a significant and growing Islamic movement,

present in both politics and society, into a progressively liberalizing political

system. Moreover, they are attempting to do so in an increasingly disturbed

regional and international climate. Turkey is clearly much further along this

path than is Morocco and as such could act as a model for Morocco. It is

clear that whatever the applicability of the Turkish model, most Moroccans

would find it much more appealing than that offered by the experience of

neighbouring Algeria. However, despite the looming fear of recreating the

‘Algerian scenario’, the very different nature and histories of Algeria and

Morocco mean that this fear is misplaced. Not least, the ingrained aversion

to rapid change that is shared across the Moroccan political and social

spectrum contrasts notably with an established Algerian appetite for

rupture. Indeed, as has been seen, awareness of the Algerian experience is

itself the most important safeguard against a recreation of the Algerian

scenario in Morocco. All political actors, from the Islamists to the Kutla

parties to the Makhzen, regularly reiterate their determination to avoid such

a development.

Interviews

Abdelkrim Al-Khatib, Secretary-General of the PJD (Rabat, 6 July 2001).

Fathallah Arslane, spokesman for Al-Adl wa Ihsan (Rabat, 22 July 2003).

Abdelwahed El Moutawakkil, Head of the Political Circle of Al-Adl wa

Ihsan (Rabat, 28 June 2002).

Saad-Eddine Othmani, Deputy Secretary-General of the PJD (Rabat, 7 June

2000, 26 June 2002, 23 July 2003).

Abdeslam Yassine, founder and spiritual leader of Al-Adl wa Ihsan (Salé,

22 June 2000).

Nadia Yassine, daughter of Abdeslam Yassine and spokeswoman for Al-Adl

wa Ihsan (Salé, 5 July 2001, 27 June 2002).



NOTES

1. The party’s parliamentary group even published a book detailing their activities andachievements in Parliament: Fariq al-Adala wa Tanmiya bi Majlis Anouab. Hasilat AssanawatAlkhams. Iltizam wa Atae. Alwilaya Atachriiya 1997–2002 (The PJD Group. The Evaluationof Five Years: Commitment and Achievement. The Parliamentary Period 1997–2002).

2. However, as one newspaper close to At-Tawhid wa al-Islah, At-Tajdid, observed, it was notthe victory of the FIS that led to conflict in Algeria, but it was the intervention of the Algerianmilitary (supported by some political parties) to cancel the results and ban the FIS thatprovoked violence (At-Tajdid, 17 Sept. 2002).

3. In the first round of the legislative elections of December 1991 the FIS had won 47 per centof the votes cast but stood to win as much as 60–70 per cent of the seats in the NationalAssembly. See Willis [1996: 230–33]. This was due to the distorting effect of single-memberdistrict elections that favour bigger dominant parties such as the FIS. A similar effect can beseen in the British general election of June 2001 where the Labour Party won 41 per cent ofthe popular vote but secured 63 per cent of the seats in the House of Commons.

4. Lists of candidates were drawn up by the local sections of the party and submitted to theGeneral Secretariat of the party for approval. According to Saad-Eddine Othmani, deputysecretary-general of the party, all the local choices were accepted by the General Secretariat(La Gazette du Maroc, 16 Sept. 2002). The candidate at the top of each local list was requiredto have the support of 60 per cent of the local section. However, there was an accusation thatone PJD candidate had, like candidates in many other parties, paid money to secure the topposition on one of the local lists (Demain, 5 Oct. 2002).

5. There had been an attempt by the General Secretariat of the party to impose its candidates in tenper cent of the districts contested, but this had been defeated by the rule stipulating that candidateshad to have 60 per cent support in local branches (As-Sahifa Al-Ousbouiya, 2 Oct. 2002).

6. Al-Ittihad Al-Ichtiraki together with Al Bayane, the newspaper of the USFP’s close politicalally the Party of Progress and Socialism (PPS), also accused the Minister of ReligiousAffairs, Abdelkebir Alaoui Mdaghri, of allowing the PJD to make use of the mosques in thisway (Al Bayane, 1 Oct. 2002). This accusation was denied by Alaoui Mdaghri who issued acircular to all mosques stating that any officially appointed Imam had to resign their positionif they accepted to be a candidate (of any party) in the elections.

7. For details and discussion of the party’s 1997 electoral programme see Willis [1999: 62–9].8. However, in November 2002 and following her successful election to Parliament, Gherbal

began to wear the veil, a decision that she was anxious to stress ‘was religiously rather thanpolitically motivated’ (At-Tajdid, 20 Nov. 2002).

9. The PJD’s newspaper stressed in its editorial that Sharia law could only be applied in certainconditions and with the support of society (At-Tajdid, 5 Oct. 2002).

10. It was also alleged that the governor (wali) of Tetouan had convened a special meeting onthe eve of the election to discuss ways of reducing the PJD vote (Demain, 5 Oct. 2002).

11. Specifically Ramid pointed to the fact that many unknown PJD candidates had succeededagainst well-known local personalities as evidence of the fairness of the poll.

12. One report, not published in the media, suggested that the PJD had won half (15) of the 30seats on the national women’s list.

13. Some members of the USFP suspected the PJD and the Istiqlal of having formed a secret pre-election pact (Le Point, 4 July 2002). It was reported that the PJD had directed supporters inelectoral districts it was not contesting to vote for the Istiqlal – notably in Essaouira wherethe Istiqlal won two seats (At-Tajdid, 24 Sept. 2002; Maroc Ouest, 3 Oct. 2002).

14. Mustapha Ramid, identified with the radical wing of the party, was replaced as leader of theparliamentary party. Ahmed Raissouni resigned as head of At-Tawhid wa al-Islah, followingcontroversial comments he made to a newspaper about the religious status of the monarchy.

15. Abdelkrim Al-Khatib was a former cabinet minister in governments in the 1960s. It isthought that his status as a figure close to the Palace (he co-founded Morocco’s oldest‘royalist’ political party, the Mouvement Populaire, in 1957) made his MPDC an acceptablehome for the Islamists of At-Tawhid wa al-Islah, particularly since Khatib retained officialcontrol of the party as secretary-general.



REFERENCES

Kepel, G. (2002): Jihad: The Trail of Political Islam, London and New York: I.B. Tauris.Mecham, R.Q. (2002): ‘From the Ashes of Virtue, A Promise of Light: The Transformation of

Political Islam in Turkey’, paper presented at Middle East Studies Association (MESA)Annual Meeting, Washington DC, Nov.

Munson, H. (1993): Religion and Power in Morocco, London and New Haven, CT: YaleUniversity Press.

Shahin, E.E. (1997): Political Ascent: Contemporary Islamic Movements in North Africa,Boulder, CO: Westview.

Tozy, M. (1999): Monarchie et Islam Politique au Maroc, France: Presses de Sciences Po.Willis, M. (1996): The Islamist Challenge in Algeria: A Political History, Reading, PA: Ithaca

Press.Willis, M.J. (1999): ‘Between Alternance and the Makhzen: At-Tawhid wa Al-Islah’s Entry into

Moroccan Politics’, Journal of North African Studies 4/3, pp.45–80.

Al-Ahdath Al-Maghribia (Casablanca)Al Bayane (Casablanca)As-Sahifa Al-Ousbouiya (Casablanca)Ashark Al-Awsat (London)At-Tajdid (Rabat)Aujourd’hui Le Maroc (Casablanca)Demain (Casablanca)La Gazette du Maroc (Casablanca)La Vie Economique (Casablanca)L’Economiste (Casablanca)Le Figaro (Paris)Le Journal (Casablanca)Le Point (Rabat)Maroc Hebdo International (Casablanca)Maroc Ouest (Casablanca)7 A Dire (Casablanca)



Morocco's Islamists and the legislative elections of 2002: the strange case of the party that did...

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