Morocco: Experimenting with Elections

Arab and African leaders generally sneer at Hassan II of Morocco because he is a King in an era of crumbled monarchies. Yet such "progressives" as Egypt's Nasser and Ghana's Nkrumah would not dare to let their own people indulge in the measure of press freedom and political democracy that Hassan allowed in last week's national elections.

At stake were 144 seats for a House of Representatives, the first freely elected chamber since Morocco won independence from France seven years ago, and the field was wide open. Hassan's major opposition parties, the nationalist Istiqlal and the leftist National Union of Popular Forces, were out in strength, and even the Communist Party—officially outlawed but quietly tolerated—fielded three candidates. Opposition newspapers circulated freely, and one prominent politician got away with calling the King a liar.

Two months before the election, Hassan also entered the race by having his closest confidant, Interior-Agriculture Minister Ahmed Reda Guedira, 40, organize a pro-Hassan party christened the Front for the Defense of Constitutional Institutions. Unsurprisingly, the F.D.C.I. enjoyed the use of government vehicles to haul wondering tribesmen to rallies, plus the organized support of the government's administrative bureaucracy. Flush with campaign cash, F.D.C.I. Leader Guedira (who got some pointers when he witnessed the 1960 U.S. election campaign) passed out thousands of free miniature soccer balls, T-shirts and campaign buttons bearing the royalist party color (yellow). More important for Hassan, however, was the traditional apathy of Morocco's 75% illiterate population. In the ancient city of Fez, a heavily veiled scrubwoman candidly declared, "I do not know what it is all about, but I am going to vote for my King."

Hassan's Royalists expected to win enough seats to assure the King of a plurality. In any case, he did not have to worry much, for there were limits to his experiment in democracy. Under a new constitution he personally drafted last year, he can dissolve the House at any time he chooses.