6
Morocco: God and King

Morocco is a monarchy, and all the complexities and contradictions that color relations between its ruled and ruler are embedded in that simple assertion. Morocco's monarch is not merely king: he rules over one of the world's oldest monarchies as a sharif , descendant of the Prophet, and as Prince of the Faithful, amir al-mu'minin . Although political parties mediate competition among elites and a constitution ostensibly defines the parameters of legitimate political play, Morocco in the late twentieth century remains in the tutelage of patrimonial principles. The king towers over the political system, and his role must be understood before we can examine either the activities or the impact of human rights groups. The king defines the players and the play; he sets the tone of political discourse. Any analysis of Moroccan state-society relations must thus commence with the monarchy.

The Monarchy

The Moroccan monarchy appears to many a quixotic political anachronism. Efforts to explain its staying power in terms of the intrinsic weakness and fragmentation of the opposition or in terms of the charisma and good luck (baraka ) of individual monarchs have their merits, but they are not fully persuasive. The opposition has indeed been fractious, but it is arguably better developed in Morocco than in other Maghrib states. For their part, the most recent monarchs have proven resilient and canny, but along the way not every occupant of the throne has been so gifted or so fortunate. Elsewhere the tendency toward personal rule commonly undermines political institutions,^[1] yet in Morocco the monarchy itself has been relatively immune to attack. Even in the abstract there is little noteworthy

support for republican rule, and while critics may attack individual policies or—cautiously—the monarch himself, the legitimacy of the monarchy as an institution is rarely subject to open questioning.

What the Moroccan king possesses that other Maghribi heads of state lack, and what the Moroccan opposition alone must face, is the weight of an institution gradually constructed over twelve centuries and now deeply anchored in the political culture and psyche of the Moroccan people. It is not a social contract so much as a psychological contract that binds the people to the monarchy; richly symbolic rituals have sealed the relationship and in their regular reenactment continuously renew it.^[2] Historical processes have made the sharifian principle—the popular belief that Morocco's legitimate ruler is and should be a descendant of the Prophet Muhammad—the cornerstone of the political system. Rituals associated with the monarchy helped establish the king as a patriarch, attributing his rights of governance to divine origin. Because the rituals successfully incorporate all strata of society, they likewise manage to integrate both ruled and ruler symbolically into a single community of faith. Ritual enactments reconnect Moroccans to their forebears and to the divine, and the monarchy emerges from them as the centerpiece of the Moroccan polity. More mundane practices of politics can by consequence only revolve around it.

The sharifian principle was elaborated over several centuries, but the Sa'di dynasty (1548–1641) was the first to have grasped the legitimizing power of blood descent. From 1069, Moroccan territory had been controlled by a succession of Berber dynasties whose cultural and political achievements made of Morocco an important seat of power in the world of their time.^[3] Rulers presided over a centralized state apparatus that effectively organized military force and permitted expansion. Marrakesh and Fez were transformed into imperial cities. A vast network of bankers and merchants traded gold, sugar, salt, and slaves, and Fez was renowned in the Islamic world as a center of learning.

Early in the fifteenth century, the dual assault of bubonic plague and rising European power caused centralized rule to collapse. About the same time, however, the fortuitous discovery of a tomb purported to be that of Idris II, Morocco's first true sovereign directly descended from the Prophet, introduced a potent new political force. Religious zeal flourished in the 1600s—partly in reaction to the Spanish Reconquista and Portuguese invasions—and sharifs popularly symbolized the ideal of Moroccan unity.^[4] From the south, Sa'diyan sharifs were able to build a religio-political movement that by 1554 allowed them to control both Marrakesh and Fez and unify the Moroccan territory.

Powerful as it was, blood descent was not the only source of political legitimacy in uncertain times, and to an aspiring dynast, devout Sufi shaykhs and the tariqas (brotherhoods) they headed posed the greatest threat. The Sa'di ruler Ahmad al-Mansur (The Victorious) understood that political reality, and he understood as well that contemporary questions about the Sa'dis' own claim to the bloodline increased his vulnerability.^[5] He governed ruthlessly and levied heavy taxes to support the splendor of his court, but he took great care to develop the symbolic linkages between the Prophet and his contemporary heir. The first Islamic millennium was marked during Al-Mansur's reign and afforded abundant opportunities to strengthen those linkages. Most important, a celebration of the Prophet's birthday that had been developed in the eastern Islamic world during the twelfth century was adapted for the Moroccan monarchy. A fabulous ceremony opened with a candlelight procession that was followed by Arabic recitations and a sumptuous feast at the sultan's palace. In the course of festivities, crowds were admitted to the palace by social rank in a manner that clearly established social order and set the Prophet's descendant at its head.^[6]

Al-Mansur's death in 1603 created a power vacuum that was filled for several decades by Berber Sufis from the Dala'iyya zawiya in the Middle Atlas. The eventual transition from the decentralized rule of the Sufis to the 'Alawi dynasty that reigns in Morocco today brought with it the foundation of the modern state and domination over the 'ulama in Fez. There is some dispute among scholars about the circumstances that led the sharif Mawlay Rashid to arrive from the south, unseat the Dala'iyya and reestablish dynastic rule. M. E. Combs-Schillings suggests that seventeenth-century Moroccans awaited messianic deliverance and found it in the 'Alawis.^[7] Other accounts are more equivocal. According to Jacques Berque, the notables of Fez respected the Dala'iyya for their religious piety and were critical of Mawlay Rashid.^[8] More important, though, they prized their autonomy. Fez resisted Dala'iyya entry in 1641, and similarly, the city surrendered to Mawlay Rashid's ambitions in 1668 only after a protracted struggle.^[9]

Berque argues that rather than any religious respect they commanded, it was military might combined with their initial distance from the power center of Fez that finally allowed the 'Alawis to establish their rule.^[10] The bloodline was insufficient: Al-Mansur had left sons with sharifian claims, but they compromised the dynasty with internecine conflict and concessions to Spain; likewise, descendants of the original Idrissid rulers were unable to establish control. The sharifian principle established eligibility, but the fundamental basis of the 'Alawi dynasty—from its inception to

the present—was its distance from both the masses and political elites. Once in power, the 'Alawi dynasty expanded the kingdom's domain and laid in place the foundations of a modern state. Dissident tribes in its outreaches, the bled al-siba , acknowledged the political authority of the sharif monarch even if they still refused to pay taxes or comply with requests they judged unreasonable. During the reign of the greatly feared and equally admired Mawlay Ismail (1672–1727), privateering supplied wealth to rebuild the kingdom, and a professional army of black slaves imposed order even on lands beyond Fez and the central plain. No fewer than seventy-six fortresses were built to guarantee security of the bled almakhzen , land in the government's firm control.^[11]

The territory was secure, but the throne less so. Primogeniture was not recognized, and the 'ulama in Fez held formidable religious and judicial authority. The 'Alawi dynasty, like the Sa'dis that preceded it, needed to insert itself into the actual practice of religion to curtail the power of rivals and undergird its claim of divine right to rule (qutb al zam'an ). The dynasty continued and expanded ritual performances, but most important was a change that put the Great Sacrifice, the most important of Islam's canonical rituals, at the service of the Moroccan monarchy. The ritual as observed throughout the Islamic world involves the sacrifice of a ram and, when possible, a pilgrimage to Mecca. Its observance gives social form to the notion of umma (community of believers) and links it to God and eternity. Beginning in the second half of the seventeenth century, Moroccan monarchs publicly slew a ram on behalf of the nation, and in so doing added another layer of meaning. As Combs-Schilling observes, in creating the ritual, the Prophet Muhammad had inserted himself into the mythic event of Ibrahim's sacrifice; in carving out a role for itself in the sacred ritual, the Moroccan monarchy represented itself as the intervening link between the Prophet and the umma .^[12]

The rituals associated with both the Prophet's birthday and the Great Sacrifice effectively bound the masses to the monarchy, and it would appear that they were introduced for that explicit purpose. They also have the effect, no less important, of setting the monarchy apart from the people and reinforcing the distance that allowed monarchs to establish and maintain their rule. Incorporated into the practice of the Moroccan monarchy more than three centuries ago, rituals that entwine the monarchy with Islam have remained largely in place through the fortunes that have followed, and they are performed today by King Hassan II. Even colonial rule, which stripped the Moroccan throne of governing power, did not rob the rituals of their own potency. When Mawlay Hafiz was forced to sign the

capitulation papers in 1912, he also destroyed the scarlet canopy and the sedan-chair that had been emblems of the 'Alawi dynasty, but he continued to perform the Great Sacrifice on behalf of the nation.^[13]

Through deeply resonating rituals, the sharifian principle has imbued the Moroccan monarchy with a potency that extends beyond any given occupant of its throne. The French learned this lesson the hard way. In 1927 they handpicked the sultan's successor, choosing his youngest son to maximize their own control, but to their dismay Mohammed V grew into the role that had been constructed for Moroccan monarchs over the previous three centuries. Colonial rhetoric was turned against the French by the young sultan, who used the religious power that yet remained attached to the monarchy to endorse the cause of political independence. When in 1953 the French exercised exceedingly bad judgment and deposed the sultan on the very eve of the Great Sacrifice, the wheels that turned Moroccan society ground to a halt. So potent a symbol of the nation was Mohammed V that, in stark contrast to other contemporary independence movements, the national cause was framed in terms of his return and the renewal of a traditional institution.^[14] In 1955, Mohammed V was restored to the throne, and Morocco was granted independence—the last of the Maghribi countries to be colonized and the first to free itself of colonial rule.

The power of the Moroccan monarchy's symbols helped it survive colonial rule and harness the energies of the nationalist movement. The dynamics of political life today involve the high drama of court rituals less centrally, but those rituals nonetheless specify the relationship between ruled and ruler and form a backdrop against which even the most ordinary political event must be viewed. They create a context for political activity that at times overshadows the political play itself, and the power they lend to a reigning monarch cannot be discounted. The country's mass media ensure that Moroccans do not forget that their ruler is a king, and on celebrated occasions throughout the year they are reminded that their king is amir almu'minin . Neither the sharifian principle nor the powerful rituals prevent political contest, but they do impose parameters on the political game and affect the relationship between the king and the country's political class.

The King and His Men

When Mohammed V was permitted to return from exile in 1955 and the French ceded their claim to Morocco, the weight of history was on the sharifian monarch's side. For tactical reasons, the nationalist movement that emerged in the 1930s had not adopted republican rhetoric, and the

dependence of both the French and the nationalists on the sultan to advance their interests shaped a framework by which, at independence, Mohammed V could reclaim control over the political system. Yet the process was not automatic. There was no significant dispute over the legitimacy of the monarchy, or the monarch, but the nature of the relationship between sultan (or king, in the new parlance preferred by Mohammed V) and subjects was nevertheless open to renegotiation. The monarchy had been restored, but its terms had not been set, the various roles to be played by the nationalists had not been clearly delineated, and there was no consensus about the effective balance of power between political forces. Apart from the principle of sharifian descent, there were no generally accepted rules of succession, which opened speculation about legitimate rule; the spread of nationalism and Wilsonian principles of self-determination also provoked questions about the role and powers of the monarch.

For close to twenty years—until the emergence of the Western Saharan issue in the mid 1970s—kings and political parties were locked in a contest for control of the political agenda.^[15] Although from the outset both Mohammed V and his successor Hassan II enjoyed certain advantages, the outcome of early political battles about the determination and prioritization of issues to be addressed by public policy was far from certain. The sultan and the nationalists had found common cause in the struggle for independence, but as the only viable political party in Morocco through 1959, the Istiqlal Party also aspired to control the country's political processes, and although internal contests prevented it and its offshoots from imposing their will on the throne, their collective influence was sufficient to deny both Mohammed V and Hassan II control over the political debate about important social and economic issues for nearly two decades.

During that time, the working rules of the modern monarchy were gradually crafted, leaving the king in clear control of the political game. Mohammed V had spoken lengthily about constitutional monarchy prior to independence, but enactment was delayed. Demands within nationalist circles for a constituent assembly like that elected in Tunisia were ignored, and instead a National Consultative Assembly was created, its members being appointed by royal decree. The first in a series of constitutions was finally drafted by loyal monarchists in 1960, but the process of approval and enactment was interrupted by Mohammed V's death in 1961. His eldest son and successor, Hassan II, finally promulgated a constitution in 1962, which reinforced the monarchy by establishing the inviolability of the person of the king and the successionary principle of primogeniture.

Simultaneously, it capped the strength of any given political grouping by prohibiting the development of a single-party system.

Through the life of this constitution and three successive ones, parties and the Palace have struggled over control of the political process, although as outlined below, the early contests clearly gave the upper hand to the 'Alawi monarch. Parliament and parties have since become well established on the Moroccan landscape—leading some to claim that Morocco is an effective multiparty democracy^[16] —but the king remains free to bypass these institutions and pursue his ends through alternative means.

Parties, Government, and Parliament

Under its constitution, Morocco has a pluralistic, competitive party system, and successive slates of government ministers have represented a variety of party affiliations. The functioning of government and the vigor of parties are not, however, to be confused with political power. Over the years, that prize has fallen to the king alone. How then do the democratic institutions of parliament and political parties fit into the patrimonial framework of Moroccan politics?^[17]

Parties are numerous, but their role is limited. In the first place, there is a tendency toward fragmentation and multiplication that keeps parties weak—and serves the Palace. In the years following independence, the Palace actively encouraged the creation and development of parties that might carve away some of the Istiqlal Party's support, and the initial government appointed by Mohammed V gave disproportionate representation to smaller, less significant groupings to offset the Istiqlal Party's influence. Even by 1960, the field was cluttered. In 1959 the Istiqlal Party split, and followers of 'Abdullah Ibrahim formed the National Union of Popular Forces (UNFP). The UNFP was an urban mass party, promoting a program of social and economic reform and recruiting supporters from among workers, urban migrants, bureaucrats, and students. It would itself experience a schism in 1974, but until then it remained an important political force. In the meantime, it was joined in the political arena by several royalist groupings with various degrees of political organization. The longest-lived of these has been the Popular Movement (MP), a party based in the countryside, which promoted aspects of Berber culture but above all proclaimed unconditional support for the monarchy. Other, smaller groups—such as the inchoate Liberal Independents, first known simply as the "Friends of Rachid Mouline"—eventually disappeared.

The proliferation of new parties continued well beyond the constitu-

tional monarchy's formative years, fed by sentiments of political rivalry and the Palace's own interest in balancing power. (Table 1 traces the somewhat discontinuous and fissiparous evolution of Moroccan political parties.) In 1974, for example, divisions within the UNFP gave birth to a new Socialist Union of Popular Forces (USFP) and promised to weaken the political left. When the USFP began to gain popular favor, though, its new strength was balanced in formal instances by the pro-Palace National Rally of Independents (RNI), founded in 1978 by none other than the king's brother-in-law. Before long the RNI's own internal divisions and quarrels with the Palace over political spoils made it less than reliable as a source of support, and yet another party stepped into the breach. The Constitutional Union (UC), created by Prime Minister Maati Bouabid in 1983 and made up largely of young professionals, consolidated the parliamentary majority in 1984.

To mitigate the isolating effects of their size, small parties have frequently formed electoral coalitions. In 1984 five parties ran together as the Kutla (Democratic Bloc), and in preparation for the 1993 legislative elections they again joined forces.^[18] Of the thirteen parties that participated in the 1993 legislative elections, all but the fragmentary UNFP and the Constitutional and Democratic Popular Movement (MPDC), a small splinter group that broke away from the MP in the late 1970s, won seats in the new parliament. A de facto royalist coalition consists of parties commonly allocated government ministries and is referred to as the Wifaq (Entente).

If parties are prone to fragmentation, they are also subject to political tutelage and even repression. The USFP, for example, might eventually have had a significant effect, but its vigorous early growth was severely checked by government repression and in elections generally acknowledged as fraudulent. Such experiences were common on the left—and are discussed at greater length later in this chapter. Other parties have generally been spared repression, but they are not altogether independent of the Palace. The MP's founder, Mahjoubi Aherdane, for example, fell out with the Palace, and with many within his movement, in 1985. Although he retained his seat in parliament, relations deteriorated with others in the MP to the point where in 1990, twenty-one members announced their intent to hold a party congress to establish a new leadership. It was a nod from the royal councilor Reda Guedira that empowered the fronde to reorganize the party and exclude Aherdane.^[19]

The impact of political parties is limited, not simply by deficiencies in their own strength, whether inherent or imposed by the Palace, but also by the relative weakness of the two bodies in which they may find expression,

Figure 1.
Evolution of Moroccan Political Parties, 1956–1993

(table continued on next page)

parliament and the cabinet. Irrespective of electoral outcomes, the cabinet represents royal interests. The monarchy has secured constitutional recognition of its right to appoint the prime minister, and like his father, Hassan II has jealously guarded control over key ministries. He has entrusted sensitive portfolios only to those with known personal loyalty, and although lesser ministries have occasionally been allocated to outlying parties, turnover is frequent and ministers have rarely enjoyed administrative autonomy.^[20]

Parties are given more license to construct a national debate in parlia-

ment and through their press organs—and they do—but the structure of power relations in Morocco leaves most of their actions without consequence. The Istiqlal Party's early battle for separation of powers was lost, and despite legislative and oversight functions registered in constitutions, all Moroccan parliaments since independence have been conceived of primarily as consultative bodies. Alain Claisse notes that in 1983, when parliament was dissolved at the end of the term without new deputies having been elected, the king empowered himself to assume legislative as well as executive responsibilities. A few months later, following the 1984 legislative election, Hassan II invited the newly elected deputies to fulfill their function as "council" to the sovereign, issuing the patrimonial charge, "You are all my ministers."^[21] Parliament may approve legislation, but its members are discouraged from acting independently, and they are without means to restrain monarchical powers.

With such a serious handicap, parliament is generally reduced to a rubber stamp, although it has occasionally used what powers it does have to deprive the Palace of support or contest policy. Such was the case of the first parliament, seated from 1963 to 1965. In the election, a hastily assembled royalist coalition known as the Front for the Defense of Constitutional Institutions (FDIC) had won a plurality of seats, but it failed to establish a clear majority. Moreover, Palace supporters were set back psychologically by the strong showing of the UNFP, which halfheartedly decided to run only two weeks before the election. The cabinet appointed by the king favored FDIC leaders, but neither the FDIC nor the opposing Istiqlal Party and UNFP were in a position to make the system work. It didn't. "From the outset of parliamentary life it appeared that the king wished to make a mockery of the experiment, and it is only fair to note that all concerned aided him admirably in its task," John Waterbury observed. "The opposition parties resorted to debilitating tactics designed in general to embarrass the government. The latter reciprocated with systematic hostility."^[22] Between 1963 and 1965, parliament passed only two laws.

Unfortunately for the parties that sought an oppositional role, deadlock ultimately resulted in parliament's dissolution. When in 1965 general discontent about unemployment and inflation led to riots that shook Casablanca and left several hundred people dead, the Palace sought to make amends to the parties it had contrived to exclude. They held out for fair elections and a government formed on the basis of the parliamentary majority, however, and Hassan II parried by declaring a state of emergency that dissolved parliament and suspended the constitution. From 1965 to 1970, Morocco was governed directly by the king.

However ineffective it was at elaborating a body of law or balancing executive powers, and however annoying it was to the Palace, the king recognized the usefulness of parliament as a bridge to his subjects. Consequently, the question after 1965 was not so much whether to have a parliament as how to fashion a legislative body that would serve royal purposes and under what conditions to install it. Since suspending the original constitution in 1965 the Palace has—with direct input from Hassan II—drafted three successive constitutions. In each iteration, modifications have primarily concerned the number of parliamentary seats and the means by which they would be contested. Ironically, none of the constitutions has restored even the narrow powers known to the first parliament.

Morocco's second constitution (1970) severely limited direct suffrage, and with both the Istiqlal Party and the UNFP opposing the election itself, under its terms the government—that is, the Palace—easily won an overwhelming majority. The victory, however, proved a pyrrhic one. Parties atrophied in the five-year hiatus between legislatures, and institutionalized participation virtually disappeared: 158 of the 240 deputies were elected as independents. The king was isolated and from the vantage of the military appeared to be losing control; two attempted coups in rapid succession pointed up the attendant perils.^[23] Only luck and the awesome moral presence of the sharifian monarchy saved Hassan II,^[24] and after 1972 he set about reconstructing his regime on less precarious grounds.

Morocco's third constitution (1972) loosened the royal vice grip on participation but it did not reflect a change in Hassan II's fundamental disdain for parliamentary government.^[25] In an overture that would mark a basic shift in political dynamics, the Palace in 1973 formulated its own program, introducing economic reforms and initiating a program of substantial state investments.^[26] During the first decade of independence, the monarch had frequently taken his cues from the Istiqlal Party or the UNFP, appropriating their political platforms as his own,^[27] but now he laid claim to the political agenda. Neither the emergence of new parties nor the reconvening of parliament under new rules altered that reality.

The legislature, though, continued to serve royal purposes, and the timing of elections conducted under the rules of the 1972 constitution accommodated the interests of the Palace more than they conformed to the letter of the law. The enormously successful 1976 Green March to annex the Western Sahara had poignantly reminded Moroccans of their venerable patrimony and the majesty of the dynasty that governed it, and the Palace unabashedly capitalized on the patent spirit of unity that infused even the most critical of the political parties. Without sacrificing any of its own

powers, the Palace openly courted opponents. In 1977, thus, the king created a politically all-inclusive Royal Council to prepare for elections, and in similar fashion, he appointed a "unity government" in 1983 to induce widespread participation in the 1984 elections. Neither gesture was of lasting political importance, except to underscore the king's desire to have a functioning, pluralistic legislature—on his own terms.

The fourth constitution was submitted to popular referendum in 1992 following an unusual period of parliamentary activity that directly relates to the human rights issues discussed in Chapter 10. Legislative elections scheduled for 1990 were postponed, ostensibly pending a UN-sponsored referendum on the Western Sahara. In fact, unrest was already brewing on a number of domestic fronts. Austerity measures announced in March sparked protest from labor and provoked parliament. A finance policy proposed to parliament in May evoked substantial ire and led eighty-two members of the USFP, PPS, and the OADP to file a motion of censure. Emboldened by their own initiatives—and by pressures being levied on the human rights front—various members of parliament began to speak publicly about issues as contentious as habus laws and women's rights. Members of the Istiqlal Party raised the issue of constitutional reforms, and argued that the current constitution did not permit installation of a real democracy insofar as powers were not separate and human rights not guaranteed. Political tensions increased through fall 1990 with the commitment of Moroccan troops to defend the Saudi palace, and a general strike called in December gave way to rioting and political violence in Fez. In numbers it was at least matched by a February 1991 demonstration in Rabat to protest the Gulf War, and by extension, Morocco's engagement in it. Even the military, closely monitored since the attempted coups, was said to have conveyed its opposition to Morocco's participation in the allied effort. Kutla parties sought to exploit those sentiments and renewed their efforts to woo the electorate. For its part, the Palace recognized the need to recapture popular sentiment, particularly as it faced the eventual disappearance of the Saharan issue, which has served as the only real basis for national unity over the past fifteen years. In March 1992, Hassan II announced plans to renew the constitution and rework the balance between Palace and parliament. In a familiar pattern, the new constitution expanded the number of seats in parliament, and although much fanfare was made of a preambulatory nod to international human rights norms, the Kutla was disappointed with provisions that allowed the monarch to preserve all conventional powers. Elections for the 222 directly chosen seats in June 1993 gave the Kutla parties 99 seats and a stronger showing than

had ever been recognized, but their relatively weak showing in contests for the remaining 111 seats chosen indirectly in September once again returned the parliamentary majority to a royalist coalition. In apparent disregard for the provisions of the new constition allowing a prime minister to choose his own cabinet, Hassan II offered an array of ministries to the losing parties. They refused, holding out for application of the new rules, and the game was returned to the status quo ante. Hassan reappointed Mohamed Karim Lamrani to his fourth term as prime minister, and Mawlay Ahmed Alaoui (minister of state without portfolio), Driss Basri (interior), and Abdellatif Filali (foreign affairs) took up their familiar ministerial posts.

The king thus continued to control the political game. Since the mid 1970s, Hassan II has established himself as both the master player and the referee. Contestants have been admitted to the playing field at his discretion and remain so as long as they abide by his rules. He frequently addresses the Moroccan nation as "my children," and that patrimonial phrase has set the tone of politics. For as long as they play by the king's rules—and despite the obvious risks, that posture does vary—all recognized parties are in substantial measure "king's men." That term is conventionally reserved for those who have belonged to the various monarchist coalitions, but in practical reality it has broader application.

The King as Referee

The sociologist Max Weber developed the concept of "sultanism" as a variant of traditional authority that maximizes the arbitrary will of the ruler,^[28] and Hassan II of Morocco in many regards epitomizes the ideal type. Parliament and parties lend a certain form to Moroccan politics, but most significant political transactions leave these institutions aside. Real power lies elsewhere.

As a starting point, it is worth noting—however impolitic—that the Palace owns much of Morocco.^[29] The king is said to be the country's largest landowner and has a controlling interest in Omnium Nord-Africain (ONA), the Maghrib's largest holding company. Manipulation of its wealth is central to the way the monarch controls the political game. Privately, elites exchange stories of the king's interventions to confiscate property or to award it at royal discretion. "Agrarian reform" implemented in times of crisis, for example, has permitted the Palace to allocate land and secure commensurate political support.^[30] As Waterbury remarked in the first decade after independence, patronage and surveillance over commercial activities are the king's two most effective levers of elite control.^[31] It is an

advantage to the Palace that the Moroccan elite is small; intermarriage within it assures close contact and gives the king access to politically valuable information about his most esteemed subjects. Hassan II has not hesitated to use personal idiosyncrasies and interpersonal rivalries to maintain competition for patronage.^[32]

In the lower echelons of the state apparatus, advancement is controlled by bureaucratic mechanisms, but the Palace has maintained its prerogative of filling all high-level posts by royal decree.^[33] Such appointments are prized, for in the tradition of the Moroccan makhzen (government administration), they open the doors to personal aggrandizement of a sort that might elsewhere be condemned as graft. Palace favorites may be rewarded with control of public enterprises, and public office has facilitated access to such benefits as real estate, import licenses, commercial licenses, and noncompetitive contracts.^[34] Even the contractual particulars in the lower echelons are subject to royal intervention and manipulation, so that the entire corpus of government lies open, and vulnerable, to the king's pleasure.

Commercial enterprises and banks in the private sector are also heavily dominated by the royal family, with the result that policies of privatization progressively implemented since 1983 have not reduced the Palace's control. Indeed, the king's influence in the private sector has been strengthened through the recent marriages of his two daughters, which consolidated linkages with both the Casablanca industrialists and the Fez bourgeoisie.^[35] The king does not openly flaunt these powers, but in both public and private sectors, he remains in a position to make, or break, individual fortunes.

Government and commercial perquisites actively cultivate a royal clientele and in turn make powerful patrons of the king's own clients. The Moroccan political economy turns on such relations, and the close incorporation of political elites into the system reinforces the monarch's own position. Even the political parties as a whole are beholden to the royal purse. In 1987, each of Morocco's twelve political parties were extended 1.7 million dirhams ($200,000), ostensibly to strengthen their unions and encourage a "free" press.^[36] Such largess serves to bind parties, for what is extended may also be withdrawn. When otherwise faithful clients overstep their bounds, they are removed from office, and only when they have been sufficiently chastised may they be reinstated or reintegrated within the elect circle of power. The king alone has such freedom of maneuver, and through it his patriarchal authority and patrimonial control is reinforced.

Where patronage cannot fully ensure royal dominion, the king has

himself taken charge, directly or indirectly. Military and security forces in particular come under close surveillance. Matters of internal governance that corresponded to traditional makhzen functions were of immediate concern to the Palace in the early years of independence, and the outcome of a political contest between Mohammed V and his Istiqlal Party ministers left the Palace in tacit control of the internal security apparatus. It was overseen first by General Mohammed Oufkir, who for many years was the most feared man in the kingdom. Since 1979 it has been confided to the interior minister, Driss Basri, a security agent who came up through the ranks and was groomed for the position.^[37] The Interior Ministry is responsible for a formidable security apparatus, but in addition, its administrative purview has gradually come to include the oversight of other ministries as well as technical areas carved away from other administrative units.^[38] Not surprisingly, as the ministry's powers have expanded, so has the Palace's own surveillance. As one measure of control, the king has retained powers to appoint the caids with whom security forces collaborate closely.^[39] To protect the monarchy, the security apparatus is fragmented, and rivalrous: as many as four separate security and intelligence agencies report to the Interior Ministry, and the largest of these is also subdivided into four units. For further insurance, the operations of the two most important security units are additionally overseen by the Gendarmerie royale, a division of the armed forces.^[40] Checks and balances notwithstanding, Basri is considered by many to be the second most powerful man in the kingdom.

The military is also carefully watched by the king. After the second attempted coup implicated no less a personage than General Oufkir, Hassan II reclaimed direct command of the Defense Ministry and implemented reforms to limit its power and cohesion. In particular, the largely Berber officer corps, intended by Mohammed V to counterbalance the influence of the more politically and economically favored makhzen elite, was diversified.^[41] Even so, General Ahmed Dlimi, a trusted Berber officer, had by the early 1980s accrued power sufficient to threaten the throne. Dlimi had been assigned command of the royal guard and the secret service, as well as of the politically paramount Saharan forces, and the mysterious circumstances of his death while traveling on a remote mountain road in 1983 raised suspicions of official complicity. After Dlimi's death, the army was placed under the command of the crown prince, Sidi Mohammed, and the Royal Armed Forces are regularly and poignantly reminded of their charge to defend the throne. The officer corps is reviewed with great pomp and pageantry on the anniversary of Hassan II's accession to the throne each

year; promotions are enacted, and officers are individually and publicly received to kiss the hand of the monarch in the venerable ceremony of ba'ya that reaffirms loyalty and submission to the throne.

Control of the judiciary is less straightforward, but little less effective. Successive constitutions have affirmed separation of powers, but only rarely has the judiciary exercised independence. In fact, the Moroccan monarch has retained powers to appoint all magistrates, and Moroccan judges are no less beholden to the throne than are other state employees. The ability of the judiciary to moderate relations between state and society, as through judicial review, is limited by the tacit understanding that a royal decree, regardless of its subject, supersedes other positive law. As Prince of the Faithful, the king is protected against adverse judgments on his own pronouncements, and the Moroccan Supreme Court has ruled clearly that appeals in court against royal fiat are forbidden.^[42] Like many heads of state, the king also possesses powers of clemency, but in Morocco these have been exercised in such a way as to make of the court only an auxiliary to the monarch. Royal pardons are frequently extended to common law offenders on national or religious holidays, but they have also been applied, often arbitrarily, to individuals convicted of political crimes. At a 1972 trial of UNFP leaders, for example, the king pardoned and freed the only physically present defendant sentenced to death, while twenty-seven others with lesser sentences (of ten years or more) were locked away. Likewise, pardons for political prisoners tried en masse in 1977 were meted out intermittently from 1984 to 1991, unrelated either to the charges against them or the length of their sentences. Clemency emphasizes the arbitrary powers of the king and establishes him, rather than the courts, as the supreme dispenser of justice.

Finally, to thwart those who might seek to make of high government office an independent base of power and policy, Moroccan monarchs have relied on personally appointed and personally loyal councils to formulate and even implement policies. Mohammed V initiated the practice of appointing special councils with the creation of the National Constituent Assembly in 1957, and councils were convened by Hassan II in 1965 to replace the dissolved parliament; in 1968 to deliberate the new five-year plan; in 1977 to oversee elections; and in 1990 to address issues of human rights. No corpus of law sanctions the existence and functioning of such councils or of the king's personal advisers, but their influence has often exceeded that of the formally appointed government ministers. In addition to narrowly mandated councils, a royal cabinet functioning parallel to the government often confuses the analysis of power, as does the appointment

of influential ministers without portfolio. Guedira has intermittently functioned as grand vizir, privately advising the monarch and overseeing the royal cabinet, and other royalists of undisputed loyalty likewise function as the makhzen of an earlier era did. Mawlay Ahmed Alaoui ('Alawi), a minister of state without portfolio, but with links of parentage to the royal family, travels the length and breadth of the kingdom cutting ribbons, patching up small disputes, and generally serving as a bridge between Palace and people; through the daily Matin du Sahara , he also acts as publicist for the throne.^[43] Such informal mechanisms allow the king to control most formal institutions that might develop or exhibit autonomous thought and behavior vis-à-vis the Palace. Those who accept these parameters and cooperate are, perforce, the king's men. Those who do not, when they do not, are excluded from the legitimate game of politics.

Opposition: Beyond the Sanctioned Bounds

Although both ideological conviction and personal connections have guided the formation of political parties, neither factor effectively identifies "opposition" in Morocco. Opposition is defined not so much by rhetorical content as by a challenge to royal power. The rules that govern the relationship between state and society in Morocco are clear, and the fundamental axiom is that the king is sacrosanct. The Moroccan constitution, newly revised in 1992, is only ancillary to the monarch.^[44] The king retains virtually all significant powers: he may promulgate law, appoint a prime minister and dismiss the government, dissolve parliament, suspend the constitution, and bypass parliament with constitutional amendments. It is forbidden by law to publish an article offensive to the king and the royal family, and it is illegal to inquire into royal finances. Criticism and public debate are permitted—and arguably, encouraged—so long as they neither implicitly nor explicitly contest the monarchy, Islam, Morocco's territorial integrity, or the king himself. As a practical consequence, certain subjects are politically taboo. Predictably, the most controversial and politically compelling issues lie beyond the tolerable limits: to advocate self-determination for the peoples of the Western Sahara has been considered treason; open debate about Islamism or limits to monarchical power are similarly ill-advised.

Any breech of the tacit code of consensus constructed around king, God, and country places politicians in the opposition, but subtle changes in the Palace's own positions and accommodations by erstwhile opponents give

the system a certain fluidity. Opposition in Morocco is a temporal variable, indicating the state of relations with the monarch rather than a stably occupied position within a political spectrum arrayed along social or economic lines. Politics can make odd bedfellows, and in Morocco what any two groups suffering repression at a given time may share in common is antipathy toward the Palace or some position it favors. A recognized, tolerated party may fall out of favor, and likewise, political pariahs may be invited to participate at the king's discretion. The experiences of the political left and, more recently, Moroccan Islamists provide some empirical content to the notion of opposition in Morocco and very clearly make the point that it is challenging the Palace rather than ideological position that reaps repression in Morocco.

The Political Left

The political left has been the most frequent target of repression in Morocco, although only the particulars of its relationship with the Palace explain what otherwise seem arbitrary and inconsistent reprisals directed its way. In a nutshell, the moderate socialist left, represented by the USFP, maintains a difficult relationship with the Palace, whereas more radical parties of the left are tolerated in their more outspoken criticism of political practices. The Party of Progress and Socialism (PPS), a permutation of the dismantled Moroccan Communist Party, was sanctioned in 1974, and in 1983 the rival Organization of Democratic and Popular Action (OADP), a spur of the outlawed March 23 Movement,^[45] also joined the ranks of the recognized left. Once forced to operate clandestinely, both of these smaller groups were ultimately able to claim a seat or two in parliament. By contrast, unsanctioned groupings with policy interests similar to those of the OADP and the PPS continue to suffer harsh repression. Only a combination of size, influence, and political opportunism explains the variation in their experience over time. Forerunners of the PPS such as the Moroccan Communist Party and the Liberation and Socialism Party (PLS), for example, were banned through the 1960s, and Ali Yata, their leader, was imprisoned. Only when the USFP emerged in 1974 was the new—and potentially rival—PPS allowed to form, and with communism appearing an ever decreasing threat, Yata's small party has since enjoyed considerable political freedom.^[46] A manifestly militant position on the Sahara has made its followers, like those of the OADP the "king's leftists."^[47]

Even those who enjoy the mantle of legitimacy must not take political liberties for granted. The history of the UNFP and its successor the USFP, as well as the stories of groups obliged to operate clandestinely, is replete

with cheap successes, serious defeats, and sobering lessons. Even a partial history illustrates the arbitrary nature of access to the political arena.

Almost from the outset, relations between the monarch and the political left were difficult. In late 1959, Mohammed V unsuccessfully attempted to control the UNFP by according it the prime ministry,^[48] and the UNFP's popularity at the polls in June 1963 won it only the monarch's wrath. Before the first parliament was even seated, more than 100 UNFP leaders—including 21 of the 28 newly elected UNFP representatives—were arrested on the pretext that they had plotted against the king. The accusations were not substantiated at the trial, which was quite obviously about political power and its exercise. Only after eleven death sentences were handed down and some time served did the king "retouch his own image of the magnanimous father of the country by pardoning his errant subjects."^[49] The death sentences were eventually commuted, and an amnesty in 1965 put an early end to most of the other sentences.

The drama was reenacted several times over the next decade, with some variations. By 1972, Fqih Basri, a charter member of the UNFP, had been sentenced to death no fewer than four times.^[50] A dozen political trials involving the UNFP or the left-wing National Union of Moroccan Students (UNEM) and the National Syndicate of Secondary Students (SNL) took place from 1963 to 1976.^[51] Even as one wave of repression ended with measures of clemency, another opened. Coincidental with the 1965 amnesty was the disappearance of one of the UNFP's most outspoken and most popular leaders. Medhi Ben Barka was abducted while in France. A French court tried General Oufkir in absentia and found him guilty of complicity in Ben Barka's presumed murder.

The Palace in this period occasionally held out carrots but continued to wield the stick. In 1971, for example, Hassan II reportedly summoned the UNFP leader Abderrahim Bouabid to the palace at Fez, but Bouabid declined: the king's prosecutor in Marrakesh was asking for forty-eight death sentences and he was needed to defend his UNFP colleagues.^[52] Efforts at rapprochement were renewed following the 1972 coup attempt, but neither the UNFP nor the Istiqlal Party was willing to participate without guarantees of civil liberties. Soon thereafter, hundreds of UNFP members and supporters were arrested on charges of a plot against the king. Their 1973 trial at Kenitra marked the nadir of UNFP relations with the Palace: the seventy-two defendants acquitted by the court—including thirteen Rabat barristers—were kept in custody for three more years.^[53]

Greater tolerance was extended to the left from 1976 to 1981, but it came at the expense of political independence. Spanish retreat from the

Western Sahara in 1976 created an unexpected basis of national unity, and the king's new mastery of the political moment made him more disposed to reconciliation. In the interim, Bouabid's faction within the UNFP had evolved into the USFP and had largely supplanted its forebear. The new party's leadership were early advocates of incorporating the Western Saharan territories, and their enthusiasm for the issue offered a politically valuable tool to the king. The enfants terribles were transformed into emissaries and dispatched on diplomatic missions to promote the cause.^[54] National fervor, now in the service of unity—and the monarchy—softened the Palace's view of the USFP, and demands for elections and political amnesty that had previously been rejected were now heard in the Palace. By the end of 1976, most of those sentenced from 1971 to 1976 had been pardoned.

The reprieve, however, was short-lived. The compromised electoral contest of 1977 almost surely underestimated the USFP's popularity, and within the party a vocal minority actively pushed a progressive social program. When riots erupted in Casablanca in 1981 over the precipitous announcement of price hikes for basic commodities, hundreds of USFP members with no apparent connection to the unrest were arrested. The party's leadership subsequently faced capital charges for a memo criticizing the king's Western Sahara policy as too conciliatory.^[55] Eventually, a new compromise was worked out with authorities. Rank-and-file members of the USFP's radical wing shuffled in and out of prison throughout the 1980s, but legislative elections in 1984 strengthened the USFP mainstream. As a party, the USFP "found a niche where it could survive near the edges of political consensus."^[56] A decade later, after their disappointment with the 1993 legislative elections, the Kutla parties have resolved to use the consultative mechanisms of parliament as a means to press their agenda and institute a process of seeking government accountability, a strategy that seems safer, and likely to be more efficacious, than direct confrontation.^[57]

Greater tolerance of the USFP did not necessarily extend to radical leftists who contested the rules of the political game more frontally. Out of the student unrest of the mid 1960s, a political coalition known as the Progressive Front had been assembled. Its several splinter groups included most notably the 23 March Movement and Il'l-Amam, whose leader Abraham Serfaty eventually achieved notoriety as a political prisoner. The Frontistes dared leave the demarcated terra firma. Their Marxist-Leninist rhetoric implicitly called the monarchy into question, and the liberationist position many adopted vis-à-vis the Western Sahara isolated them further. Beginning in 1972, successive waves of arrests, followed by incommuni-

cado, secret detention and a mass trial in 1977 resulted finally in lengthy prison sentences for 173 individuals, including 3 women.

As time passed, Il'l-Amam was identified as the extremist group par excellence, whereas 23 Mars was eventually accorded a significant measure of legitimacy. In 1984 and 1985, seventy-two individuals, most of them members of UNEM or the SNL, were charged with threatening state security in conjunction with efforts to revive the defunct Il'l-Amam and were given long prison sentences. By contrast to the threat presumed to reside in Il'l-Amam, the remnants of the clandestine 23 March Movement were allowed to reconstitute it as the OADP and run in legislative elections. Its formal recognition followed by only five months a published article clearly stating the group's position in favor of Moroccan territorial integrity. The political crimes of secretary-general Mohammed Bensaïd, twice condemned to death in absentia, are long forgotten, and the OADP's widely sung motto, "Law, Constitution, and Respect for Procedure" raises no untoward eyebrows.^[58]

Islamism

Political nuances that explain the Palace's differential responses over time and across the range of leftist groups also explain the equivocal treatment of Islamist groups in a land where the king is Prince of the Faithful and defender of the faith. Although the king has explicitly denounced fundamentalism (intégrisme ), and although Islamists arrested in 1983 and 1984 were given particularly harsh sentences, more recently there have been considerable leniency toward Islamists and rumors that an Islamist party might be allowed to join the table of politics.

For a number of reasons, Islamism was late to take shape as a popular movement in Morocco. At roughly the same time that Tunisian Islamists were finding a voice and attracting significant followings, two different groups evolved in Morocco, but neither the al-Shabiba al-islamiyya (Islamic Youth) led by Abdelkrim Muti nor the al-'Adl wa'l-Ihsan (Justice and Charity) of Abdessalam Yassine have grown to the proportions known by the FIS in Algeria or al-Nahda in Tunisia. Islam is more politically anchored in Morocco than elsewhere in the Maghrib, and from the monarch down, the ruling class is careful to adopt an attitude of decorum and deference toward it. Popular Islamic culture was bypassed by the throne, but never came under official assault as it did in Tunisia and Algeria. Cultural alienation likewise has not reached the same proportions in Morocco as elsewhere in the Maghrib, and Islam has generally not offered the same new possibilities for political expression.

At the same time, events in Iran that resulted in the 1979 overthrow of a likeminded monarch were worrisome in Rabat. Over the summer of 1983, and after the political unrest of January 1984, Moroccan authorities arrested several dozen Islamists who were accused of belonging to an illegal association and intending to distribute tracts of "Iranian inspiration."^[59] Those arrested were for the most part secondary school students, and according to two European attorneys observing the trial, the tract supposedly bearing a photograph of Ayatollah Khomeini in fact only had pictures of King Hassan II.^[60] Twenty of the seventy-one defendants were tried in absentia, all of whom—including Muti—received sentences of death or life imprisonment. All the defendants present in the courtroom were found guilty of having plotted against the monarchy; twenty-one were given life sentences and six others were sent to Morocco's death row. It was the first time since 1973 that the death penalty had been called for in Morocco for political crimes. Two successive trials in 1985, involving followers of Muti and a former associate, Abdelaziz Enaamani, involved similar charges and returned several life sentences.^[61]

From 1985 through the onset of the Gulf conflict in 1990, only the troublesome figure of the former Sufi Brother Yassine ruffled feathers with Islamist doctrine. After publishing a most impertinent open letter to the king in 1974, Yassine had been punished with six years of imprisonment, three of them in a psychiatric hospital. Upon his release in 1980, he began to build Justice and Charity as a formal organization. Although its operation was briefly interrupted by his arrest in 1983, he was released in 1985, and until 1988 he operated more or less freely. Waves of arrests began in 1989 after many of Yassine's numerous visitors refused to cooperate with police surveillance. Justice and Charity was declared illegal, and Yassine was placed under house arrest. Although protests were launched by Moroccan human rights groups, and lawyers associated with such groups provided defense, Yassine's closest associates—the complete executive bureau—were soon thereafter imprisoned, and remained so for two years.

The Justice and Charity movement has supposedly been decapitated and formally dismantled, but in the meantime, the Gulf War and anti-Western sentiments fueled Islamism in Morocco. In early 1991, ten thousand Islamists took to the streets of Rabat, brandishing copies of the Qur'an. Demonstrators refrained from criticizing the king's decision to support the allied forces, but did not censor their pro-Iraqi slogans. By mid 1991, as many as twenty politicized religious groups were thought to be active and recruiting members in Morocco.

Since 1991 several incidents involving Islamists have marked Morocco's political landscape, and the apparent arbitrariness with which they have been handled by the forces of order point up an irony in the Palace's stance vis-à-vis this element of opposition. In July 1991, for example, following an altercation with university security forces, fifteen Islamist students were arrested and charged with a wide range of political offenses.^[62] By contrast, there was remarkably little interest in a series of violent assaults perpetrated by radical Islamists in Fez and other cities of the interior, which in at least one instance resulted in the deaths of leftist students.^[63]

The Palace has indicated its interest in using Islamism to silence other critics, and in 1991 it made no effort to disguise overtures to Yassine. Two delegations close to the Palace visited him, their mission being to find grounds for an understanding. A declaration of fealty to the monarch, it was speculated, might open the door for the creation of an Islamist party. So long as Islamists were willing to play by the rules that left the monarchy unquestioned, they too might be admitted to the game of politics.^[64] Since 1991 the Palace has backed away from its flirtation with Yassine, but its position remains equivocal enough to accommodate either tolerance or repression as best suits royal purposes.

Reprisals and Repression

Despite nominally democratic, pluralistic structures, political repression has been more extensive and more dramatic in Morocco than elsewhere in the Maghrib. The punishment for not abiding by the prescribed rules of the game is exclusion, or, in the extreme, outright expulsion. Regular players who have temporarily contested the game may be punished mildly and temporarily. As noted earlier, it has not been uncommon for high-ranking officials to be dismissed, ostracized, and even imprisoned, then subsequently courted and reintegrated into government. All are invited to play the game of politics, but the playing field is quite limited. In addition to being a player, the king serves as referee, and more egregious offenses to the central precept receive harsher responses. Moroccans advocating self-determination for the Western Sahara in the early years of the Moroccan irredentist campaign were locked away after torture and patently unfair trials. Saharans in the south of Morocco with possible connections to or sympathy for the Western Sahara liberation movement Polisario (Popular Front for the Liberation of Saguia el Hamra and Rio de Oro) were "disappeared."^[65]

Occasional releases served to reinforce the object lesson about the king's raw power. Other pointed lessons have been embedded in the arrest of

prominent political figures and in sanctions imposed on parties for political transgressions. In 1986, for example, the PPS newspaper Al Bayane was suspended for seventy days following an editorial exchange with Guedira. In elaborating the nondebatable elements of the national consensus around God, king, and country, the editors had referred generically to "institutions" instead of "monarchy."^[66]

There is frequently a quality of arbitrariness attached to reprisals. In practice, a political action directly challenging the king's judgment or policies may meet reprisal only after some time has passed, and this may appear to be in response to a lesser offense. In 1990 a general strike called by the Democratic Confederation of Workers (CDT) in Fez turned into a riot that claimed forty lives; a luxury hotel owned by the king's family was among the property losses. Hundreds of demonstrators were arrested, but despite their adamant and tendentious call for policy change, in a period where local tensions about the Gulf War ran high, labor leaders were left untouched. Months later, however, through Alaoui's Matin du Sahara , a campaign of public criticism was launched against the CDT secretary-general, Noubir Amaoui, which reached a dénouement in April 1992 when Amaoui was given a two-year prison sentence for opinions expressed to the Spanish paper El Pais . Delayed and disjointed reprisals throw players off balance even as they underscore the discretionary—and thus enhanced—powers of the monarch.

Conclusion

For some time Morocco has been faced with important problems that do not have ready, easy solutions. Like those of Algeria and Tunisia, its population (like Algeria's, almost 26.5 million in 1993) has expanded beyond the economy's ability to absorb it and provide the necessary infrastructure. Casablanca is the most congested city in the Maghrib. Its unemployment rate soars, but cities of the interior fare no better. Riots in Fez in December 1990 were fed by the outrage of recent arrivals to the city who were frustrated in attempts to find decent employment. Although its debt service is slowly being reduced, payment on Morocco's $21.5 billion debt still absorbed more than 28 percent of its export receipts in 1992, and efforts to annex the Western Sahara continue to drain the royal coffers. Willingly or not, the state is responsible for policies that address these issues, but in Morocco it is misleading to speak of the "state" as though it were an entity independent of the monarch. A civil service has functioned continuously since the late seventeenth century, but the monarchy is the linchpin that

holds it in place and assures its operation. The effectiveness of parties at articulating popular demands is perhaps limited by their own divisiveness, but is even more restricted by the weight of the monarchy. Neither parties nor the state bureaucracy can operate with any significant measure of independence from the throne, and since 1973 the king has carefully controlled the political agenda. In stipulating that the prime minister be drawn from the majority party, and in requiring parliament to debate and vote on a program initiated by the majority party, the new 1992 constitution held some potential for altering this arrangement. The king's readiness, and ability, to set these provisions aside following the results of the 1992 elections only underscores the point that their effectiveness depends heavily on one man's willingness to have his powers limited by a parliament, parties, and government ministers not of his choosing. In the meantime, the fact that the constitution was prepared by the Palace and submitted to referendum without debate or wide consultation casts doubts upon the king's inclination to relinquish his monopoly of power.

In this chapter I have emphasized the weight of the monarchy in the relations between state and society. Few factors balance the raw power of the throne, and the fact that the king remains the sole mediator between society and the apparatus that governs it leaves the "state" as secure and as fragile as the monarchy itself. The monarchical regime's unwillingness to legitimate popular political expression has periodically resulted in large-scale outbursts of protest and political violence or serious acts of insurgency that point up the precarious nature of political rule. On the other hand, despite the dramatic moments of unrest, the Moroccan regime has proven extraordinarily resilient. In Morocco's patrimonial political system, through the sharifian principle and the rituals that reinforce it, the monarchy supplies the sort of framework of cohesion that is missing in Algerian society. That even in moments of great stress, Moroccan monarchs have successfully appealed to the transcendent basis of their legitimate right to rule and evoke contrition from errant subjects attests to the symbolic power of the throne.

The weight of monarchy may reduce the likelihood of change, but it is important to recognize that even radical change is not precluded in Morocco. The Palace's great strength is also its acute weakness, and the stability of the regime rests entirely on one man and his ability to manipulate the powerful symbols of the monarchy. The heir to the throne is a young man now completely dwarfed by his father, and although the throne itself seemed to transform the mild Mohammed V and the playboy Hassan II

into mighty kings, the times and the challenges that confront Morocco today are far more complex than those that Sidi Mohammed's father and grandfather first faced. The Moroccan monarch holds the symbolic potential to unite a nation, but embedded in his role is also the possibility of betraying the nation and reaping its wrath.