Moroccan King Tours East Africa in Diplomatic Bid

King Mohammad VI meets John Kerry in Casablanca in 2014. Source: Wikimedia Commons

King Mohammed VI of Morocco has been touring African countries throughout October, stopping by both Rwanda and Tanzania during the week of October 24. Officially, the purpose of the trip is to build relations between Morocco and East Africa, but commentators alsosuggest that this trip’s agenda is focused on Morocco’s plan to rejoin the African Union, which the kingdom announced in July.

Moroccoleft the African Union in 1984 after the organization recognized the independence of Western Sahara, a region that Morocco considers to be its “southern provinces.” Moroccan authorities reportedlydecided that their absence in the African Union has not advanced its claims on Western Sahara, and now seeks to rejoin the Union to strengthen its diplomatic presence in Africa.

Morocco’s reentry into the African Union will require winning amajority vote amongst AU members. Many factors will likely be up for debate in deciding this vote, not least among which will be Morocco’s hardline stance on the Western Sahara. Moreover, Morocco’s domestic contributions to foreign fighters abroad, in tandem with the strength of the Islamist PJD party, may be seen as red flags for radicalization in the state.

This bid for regional diplomacy coincides with the recent electoral success of Islamist factions in Morocco. In October’s elections, Morocco’s Islamic Justice and Development Party (PJD)won 125 seats to take the largest presence in the country’s parliament. The party will now likely lead a coalition government for a second consecutive term since it took the parliament for the first time in 2011. In fact, PJD will be thefirst party in the modern history of the kingdom to win a second consecutive term leading a coalition government.

Many analysts are investigating the root of PJD’s unprecedented success. Researchers Marwa Shalaby and Abdullah Aydogan recentlyanalyzed more than 10,000 legislative documents from Morocco’s parliament between 2011 and 2016. They found that PJD has broken the pattern of clientelistic politics in authoritarian governments, where existing political institutions tend to favor their party’s support base over the general populace. In fact, on legislative priorities, Shalaby and Aydogan found that PJD wastwo times more responsive to the general public than its own supporters.

PJD’s recent success, however, may not make a significant impact. The political power of Morocco’s parliament remains weak due tostructural weaknesses, such as the unbalanced strength of the monarchy and a fragmented party system. As a result, PJD’s coalition government failed to achieve many parts of its 2011 platform, even when this platform mirrored public opinion.

PJD’s failure to act on itsanticorruption platform is one of the most salient examples of these weaknesses. Recent surveys have found that 82 percent of Moroccans think that the state is corrupt, and another 82 percentbelieve that the courts are more favorable to citizens with “connections.”

The growing Moroccan foreign fighter population is another problem that has continued under PJD’s leadership since 2011. Morocco’s Rif Mountains are a desolate, impoverished region that Middle East commentator Leela Jacintocalls “the heartland of global terrorism.” According to Stratfor, an estimated 1,200 to 1,500 fighters in Syria and Iraqcome from Morocco. Interestingly enough, despite the large Moroccan foreign fighter population abroad, militant strikes in Morocco are rare, a fact that Stratfor attributes in part to the strength of the government’s security forces.  

While Morocco’s domestic stability is relatively strong, the size of its foreign fighter population is cause for concern. One of thesuspected masterminds of the deadly 2015 Paris terrorist attacks is a 26-year-old Moroccan named Abdelilah Hemich. Middle East analyst Mohammed Masbahexamined Morocco’s security efforts in a paper for the German Institute for International and Security Affairs in October 2015. He found that prior to 2014, Moroccan authorities “turned a blind eye” to terrorist recruitment networks, content to allow Moroccan jihadists to exit their own country and pressure Assad’s government in Syria.

The rise of the Islamic State drove Moroccan security forces to take a more hardline approach against terrorism, but this security crackdown has failed to stem the tide of foreign fighters. Masbah suggests that the government focus on rehabilitation and deradicalization of returning foreign fighters as an alternative.