In a recent interview with the Times, Hicham Alaoui—first cousin of King Mohammed VI of Morocco and a research associate at Harvard University—expressed deep concern over the current political scene in the kingdom. Pointing to the growing role of the security apparatus in the official political system, Alaoui stressed the importance of a speedy royal intervention to avoid an imminent “national crisis.”
Alaoui is well-known for his support of democracy and the Arab Spring revolutions, and his interview comes in the context of the king’s near-absence from the Moroccan political scene, due to his long stay outside of the kingdom.
According to the Economist, last year alone the king spent almost 200 days outside of Morocco. He rarely speaks to the Moroccan people or gives press interviews, and he hardly ever responds directly to political and social events. Since ascending to the throne in 1999, Mohammed VI has given about six press interviews—mostly to international newspapers, the last of which was in 2016. The president of the National Syndicate of the Moroccan Press, who is very close to the Palace, justifies the king’s uneasy relation with the country’s press by claiming that “the national media is not qualified to interview the king.”
This prolonged absence has contributed to a decline in the popularity of the regime. Perhaps for the first time in contemporary Moroccan history, people are speaking out publicly against the Palace and the king’s absence. They have criticized the king's failure to alleviate the country’s economic crisis, especially the unprecedented rise in food and petroleum prices.
Thus the official narrative that “the king is good, and the political class is bad” has started to erode, no longer able to whitewash the tarnished image of the Palace. According to Monia Bennani-Chraïbi, professor of political science at the University of Lausanne, Moroccans have in recent years loudly asserted that “the king holds the reins of government in his hands,”; in other words, that the government is only an executive tool—and sometimes a mere facade—for the decisions of the Palace. Abdelilah Benkirane, former Prime Minister of Morocco, has long reiterated this claim, arguing that "the one who rules Morocco is His Majesty the King. The head of government is only his assistant."
The King’s absence has led to the emergence of a new actor on the Moroccan political stage, one that might be called the “Security Alliance”. This alliance comprises security and intelligence agencies, businessmen benefiting from the rentier economy, and other stakeholders, including politicians and senior officials in state institutions.
Mohammed Ziane, the former head of the Moroccan Bar Association and the former Human Rights Minister, was one of the first to try to make the Moroccan public aware of the existence of this alliance. In an interview about what he dubbed “the state-takeover network,” Ziane claimed that the group was led by by a royal advisor close to king Mohammed VI. Immediately after the interview he was arrested and sentenced to prison.
A few months after Ziane’s arrest, Moroccan journalist Ali Lmrabet released more information about the network, or what he called a "secret structure". This was a term that was first coined by Maati Monjib, a historian at Mohammed V University in Rabat, in November 2020. The term aims to capture "the narrow circle at the top of the hierarchy of power in Morocco that manages the political, security and economic affairs of the country, equivalent in meaning and function to the concept of the deep state,” as journalist Ali Anouzla explains.
The problem with this “structure” is not only that it operates outside the framework of the law and the constitution, lacking any popular legitimacy, but also that it has the means to effectively annihilate anyone who tries to reveal its members. In addition to Ziane, Monjib was also arrested at the end of December 2020, weeks after he wrote an analytical article on this subject. Upon his release in March 2021, the Moroccan Ministry of Interior issued a statement in which it denied Monjib’s allegations that “aim to mislead national and international public opinion and undermine the image of the Kingdom in terms of human rights.”
Despite the clear apprehension of the Moroccan authorities, debate in political and human rights circles about the crisis of governance in Morocco and the concept of a “secret structure" continues. The authorities, in turn, continue to deny the existence of this "structure" and relentlessly attack anyone who tries to study or even mention it.
This situation may eventually lead to a direct confrontation between the people and the Palace, especially since the latter seems to be losing its centuries-old legitimacy with the decline of the king's role in the public sphere.
Abdellatif El Hamamouchi is an investigative journalist and political science researcher from Morocco. He work has been published in The Intercept, Open Democracy, The New Arab, and Smex, and he is the co-author of the book Moncef Marzouki: His Life and Thought with Maati Monjib. He is also the recipient of the 2023 Freedom of Expression and Media Program Award in North Africa, presented by Article 19. Follow him on Twitter @AHamamouchi
