• Young monarchs and old presidents  - Michele Dunne
The reformist young kings are, after all, absolute monarchs.

• Morocco: a nuanced view  - Aboubakr Jamai
The contradictions of the Bush administration can be summed up by its oxymoronic formula: democratization without the rise of anti-American forces.

• They're all reforming under pressure  - an interview withHisham Kassem
Middle East reform will still need the protection of the international community, otherwise there's going to be a backlash.

• The people v the intelligence services  - Daoud Kuttab
The goal of the popular movement is to remind rulers that people and not intelligence services are the real source of power.

Young monarchs and old presidents
 Michele Dunne

After an Arab summit in Sharm al-Sheikh in 2000, a joke circulated in Cairo about an informal meeting among President Mubarak, King Mohammed of Morocco, King Abdullah of Jordan, and President Bashar al-Asad of Syria on a terrace overlooking the Red Sea. When a waiter approached, Mubarak placed the order: "I'll have a coffee, and bring some ice cream for the kids". While the story expressed Mubarak's sense of natural dominance in the Arab arena at the time, it also had an edge: Egypt was increasingly finding itself left out of the action, as the United States praised reform efforts by the young monarchs and pursued free trade agreements with Jordan, Morocco, Bahrain (and now the UAE, Oman, and perhaps Qatar). Egyptians wondered what it was about the young monarchs of these countries that made them such darlings of the United States.

Five years down the road from that joke, it is clear that the isolated steps toward political reform taken since then are beginning to add up to a trend, albeit a fragile one. The reasons generally discussed for this trend--and they are valid ones--include increasingly vocal demands for change from within Arab countries, emboldened by the assertively supportive stance of the US administration, as well as the reshuffling of the region's strategic deck due to the US removal of Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein and the death of PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat.

Another factor in the reform trend discussed occasionally is the generational change in leadership in the region. Not only have young heads of state taken the reins in Morocco, Jordan, Syria, Bahrain, Qatar, and the UAE in recent years, but younger officials have also risen to prominence in countries such as Egypt and Libya. While youth alone in a leader does not guarantee a progressive outlook--Syria being the clear example--it might well help to be surrounded by a coterie of young advisors who have traveled or been educated abroad and are open to new ideas.

There remains the question of whether Arab monarchies are intrinsically more amenable to change than presidential republics, separate from the question of the age of the rulers. One advantage that such systems have is that the monarch himself represents a lodestar for the society, the ultimate guarantor that--happen what might in parliament--Morocco, for example, will still be Morocco. In republics such as Libya, Algeria, Tunisia, Syria, and even perhaps Egypt, there is a sense that the system is more fragile and possibly subject to extreme change if it is opened up to real competition. At the same time, the very stability the monarchs provide might impose limits on the likely extent of political reform. The reformist young kings are, after all, absolute monarchs. While some of them are taking admirable steps to improve human rights conditions and women's rights and to increase the margin of political participation and freedom of expression, none so far has demonstrated an intention to give real power away to a parliamentary system.

Another advantage of monarchies is that they have well-established and generally accepted methods for bringing successors into power. The presidential republics currently are struggling with this issue, having for many years worked hard to protect incumbents from potential challengers. Now, because an entire generation of potential leaders was pushed aside, primogeniture is playing an important role in the succession politics of Syria, Egypt, and Libya.

Perhaps, as many Arab commentators have noted, there is not so much difference between the monarchies and the republics after all.- Published 10/3/2005 (c) bitterlemons-international.org



Michele Dunne is editor of the Arab Reform Bulletin, a monthly online journal of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington, DC.

Morocco is usually considered relatively advanced in its democratization process. Relatively, that is, compared to other Arab countries. Prominent among the hailers of Moroccan "democratization" has been the American administration, especially since the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

Many reasons have earned the Moroccan regime the support of the Bush administration. To be sure, the organization of national elections in November 2002 and local elections in September 2003, which were not obviously rigged, and the reform of the personal status law in 2003, were rare enough in the region to be underlined. However, the Moroccan regime's cooperation in the "war on terror", its relatively benign attitude toward the Sharon government as evidenced by King Mohammed VI's reception of Israeli Foreign Minister Sylvan Shalom, and its enthusiastic embrace of the Free Trade Agreement despite the opposition of a vocal civil society, have certainly contributed to America's affection for the country.

Crucially, the Moroccan regime's attitude toward the Bush administration also provides a much needed argument in favor of American foreign policy in the region. A fairly democratizing and stable regime, by regional standards at least, playing or appearing to play by the rulebook of the free market economy and yet uncritical of American foreign policy in the Middle East, is a testimony to the validity of the Bush administration's approach to the region.

However, the social background of the Moroccans involved in international terrorist attacks and in the May 16, 2003 Casablanca suicide bombings, and their probable utilization of the informal economy to finance their deeds, have underlined the spill-over effect of the Moroccan regime's governance. A closer look at the political and economic evolution of the country offers a more nuanced view.

The death of King Hassan II in July 1999, and the first liberal decisions taken by his successor, Mohammed VI, brought the hope of truly democratic transition. But the evolution of the political and economic landscape has not fully confirmed that hope.

On the political side, the regime organized two major elections. The legislative elections took place in 2002. Many observers remained skeptical about their transparency; as of today, their detailed results have not been published--details that could prove they were rigged. It is believed that the only authorized Islamist party, the PJD, was the main target of the government's tampering with the elections results, which gave the best configuration possible for the monarchy: a fragmented political landscape.

As for the municipal elections, the regime used the May 16, 2003 Casablanca terrorist attacks and the anti-PJD campaign waged by parties close to the monarchy to limit the participation of the Islamists, first by preventing their most popular leader from running and then by limiting the number of districts in which the PJD was allowed to present a candidate. For example, in Casablanca, a stronghold of the PJD, it was permitted to have candidates in only half of the districts. It is believed that this policy led to some dismally low participation rates in the big cities; in some districts in Casablanca and Tangiers it did not surpass 30 percent.

On the human rights front, an Equity and Reconciliation Commission (IER) began work to definitively settle serious violations of human rights, including compensation for all outstanding cases of arbitrary detention and disappearance, prior to the king's assumption of the throne in 1999. Although an encouraging development, this initiative has been criticized for preventing victims from revealing the identity of their torturers, and for overlooking the human rights abuses perpetrated by the police after the terrorist attacks in 2003. Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International published reports documenting these "systematic" abuses and revealed the existence of a secret detention center in the suburbs of Rabat.

On the economic front, one of the disturbing results of the reforms is, apart from the maintenance of the patronage system, the increasing pre-eminence of the king as businessman. The monarchy seems to have used the reforms to capture a bigger chunk of the private economy. The king controls a number of companies with stock market capitalization amounting to 30 percent of the total Casablanca stock exchange. This entrepreneurial voracity is scaring the business community, which fears competing with a monarchy that enjoys quasi-absolute powers. The end result of this strategy, coupled with a notoriously corrupt judiciary, is the effective crowding out of the local business community, thereby explaining the dearth of national private investment.

Another negative development is rampant corruption. Morocco has been sliding down the Transparency International Corruption Index since the year 2000. Even the much vaunted macroeconomic stability of the country has been jeopardized lately. Credit Suisse First Boston, an international bank closely watching Morocco, titled one of its recent research reports "Morocco heading for the rocks with an overly loose 2005 budget".

Another worrying sign is the yearly four percent urban expansion due mainly to rural migration. The lack of public investment, coupled with the potential downfall of major industries employing low skilled labor, represent a major potential threat to the regime. Until now, poverty has been mainly concentrated in the rural areas, making it difficult for political entrepreneurs to mobilize. In urban areas, it will be a more readily usable resource. The Islamist opposition, both the PJD and the banned movement Al-Adl Wa Al-Ihssan, seems to be the best positioned to take advantage of this evolution.

Will the monarchy heed the calls for a truly democratic constitutional reform, refrain from its predatory behavior and allow for the relative de facto independence of the legislative, judicial and executive branches as the army has done in Turkey? Or will it exploit this new geo-strategic rent accruing from the "war on terror" to stem democratic change?

The complexity of the dilemma is further compounded by the contradictions of the Bush administration. These can be summarized by its oxymoronic formula in the present context of Middle Eastern politics: democratization without the accession to power of anti-American forces.- Published 10/3/2005 (c) bitterlemons-international.org



Aboubakr Jamai is editor of Lakome.com. He is former editor of the Casablanca-based Le Journal Hebdomadaire.