Palace Maneuvers in Morocco

...Our subjects," says the Charter, "will be guaranteed liberty of expression, assembly and association...

...the Marxist-minded intellectuals who built the party machinery, and the trade-union leaders (Union Marocaine de Travail) who supplied the shock troops and muscle...

...For others, like Mehdi ben Barka, who edits the party's newspaper and is the chief builder of the party organization, or Mahjoub ben Seddik, the dynamic, pinkish chief of the UMT...

...He saw the Berbers, too—the leaders of the great mountain tribes, which cherish a primitive but fierce democracy all their own and have not appreciated the incursions into their precincts of noisy Istiqlal organizers and dues-collectors...

...It is this otherwise perfect model of an Eastern potentate circa 1500 a.d., however, who has just given his people a "Royal Charter" of liberties and democratic procedures...

...There were no texts, no precedents...

...a system of constitutional monarchy...

...This is all the quainter because the 48-year-old Sultan, who recently took the title of King Mohammed V, scrupulously maintains all the perquisites of an Oriental autocrat in his personal way of life...

...According to one view, the Istiqlal and the King have been maneuvering against one another since the latter's triumphant return from exile, with the Istiqlal steadily winning each move—until the other day...

...The rivalry has never burst into the open, either inside the party or between party and monarch...

...The denouement of the government "crisis" in Rabat is not merely a bland tale of Araby in modern dress...

...When the smoke cleared, the party had improved its relative position by having nine cabinet posts against seven held by independents, with Bekkai still at the Prime Ministry but the PDI eliminated altogether...

...This is largely due to the fact that Morocco, constitutionally, is a medieval-type absolute despotism complete with a Sultan named Mohammed—Imam or high priest of the faithful, Sherif or lineal descendant and heir of the Prophet himself...

...At the same time, Morocco has a modern-type political party called Istiqlal (Independence) which holds the Premiership and eight of the ten portfolios in the new cabinet...

...But suppression never really suppresses, and Moroccans influenced by the imaginative insights of their royal preceptor may begin to realize this more and more...

...Thus, subtly, with admirable Oriental finesse, the entire position was changing...

...By simply not announcing anything, and letting time drag by, the King was showing the country that he, not the Istiqlal, was making the decisions...

...The Charter does not actually install these rights, it merely promises them...

...When the Royal Charter finally appeared, it was hailed in rapturous headlines...

...According to evil tongues, a royal finger is dipped into numerous gravy pots for the enlargement of the privy purse...

...When time permitted, further consultations...

...A one-party regime in ascendancy in strategic Morocco, it is feared, would be much more prone to experiments and attitudes d la Nasser than a good, sound monarchy carefully and wisely feeling its constitutional way...

...The flavor of Moroccan politics, however, is much more Palace of Haroun al-Raschid than Palais Bourbon...

...The King had to go down to Casablanca to open the International Fair...

...The Istiqlal stopped talking about "homogeneity" and began wistfully developing the phrase "collective responsibility...

...It sternly announced that unless it could form a "homogeneous" government in which it would have all the seats, it would go into ominous opposition...

...But this is where the Haroun al-Raschid climate set in...

...A commission, whose members We shall designate, will draft an electoral law and a law on public liberty...

...The Istiqlal made no secret even then of its dislike for divided responsibility in the Government—although all ministers were individually responsible to the King and his was legally the final decision...

...a democratic regime" which alone can give "true meaning" to the independence won from France...

...Most important of all, days accumulated on days, and much mystery, while nothing happened...

...He began holding consultations...

...If anything, some of their slogans and "programs" suggest even more intolerance and obscurantism than the Istiqlal's...

...That's how I see the problem...

...But the delay is due only to the fact that, the democratic institutions and sophistications of the Moroccan community being still fairly rudimentary, the privileges to be bestowed must be carefully planned and not made richer than can be digested at this stage...

...Otherwise he would be confronted by the impossible prospect of constructing a cabinet rigorously opposed by the country's strongest political faction (nobody knows how strong, because nobody has ever had the opportunity to vote for or against it...

...Disclosure of the new cabinet's composition, four days later, was pure anti-climax...

...Moulay Larbi Alawi, a royal relative and one of the graybeard crown counselors, came into an anteroom to assure reporters: "There is no reason for uneasiness...

...The monarch, it was intimated, was dissatisfied with the primitive workings of government heretofore...

...Yet there seems good reason to believe that Mohammed V's promised constitutional experiments, while sincere in their enlightened purposes, are also a crafty maneuver against the one largest single potential threat to the throne in Morocco today—the Istiqlal party...

...For bosom cronies, in place of old-style court jesters, he has his cook, his chauffeur and his official photographer—all three of them Frenchmen — with whom he plays a fast game of bowls on quiet palace evenings...

...The Istiqlal, on the other hand, is felt to have totalitarian tendencies and dangerous potential cleavages...

...The Istiqlal's receipt of eight among ten portfolios aroused little comment...

...The Istiqlal justified this take-it-or-leave-it attitude with the virtuous argument that foreign dangers and a desperate economic situation needed a firm government with full authority to take daring decisions...

...The King, it was evident to a grateful nation, was seeking advice all over, as a good king should, and pondering...

...Morocco has something better than a government, for she has her King...

...A current case in point is that of Morocco's Jewish minority...

...He saw the Independents, the PDI, the bearded royal counsellors, the religious leaders...

...But elections held under troubled conditions, when every adventurer will use the occasion to stir up disorders, would endanger Morocco's security, Istiqlal contended...

...More holidays...

...There is reason to believe that, before long, Morocco may restore the fundamental right of emigration to all its citizens, thereby reassuring many Moroccan Jews that Morocco is a civilized community deserving not to be fled from but to be lived in and worked for...

...Liberties prudently granted and administered, observers feel, provide a better safety valve for Moroccan political immaturities than would the heavy-handed controls envisaged by an over-righteous Istiqlal...

...Just like the French, from whose "protection" they freed themselves in 1955, the Moroccans indulge in governments which topple with agreeable frequency...

...His subjects, including his Prime Ministers, humbly bend the knee and kiss the hand...

...In the ensuing months, the Istiqlal-controlled Interior Ministry took a series of vigorous actions against other political groups, discharging officials, suppressing certain party newspapers and meetings, and even arresting some opposition leaders and henchmen...

...The real issue under negotiation, it was made to seem, was not who was to have what portfolios, but how the relationships between ministers and Prime Minister, between cabinet and King, might best be clarified...

...At the outset of the new crisis, the entire diplomatic community in Rabat and practically every politician in Morocco (including the palace perimeter) thought Mohammed V would have to surrender quickly...

...A rival but secondary party, the Independent Democrats (PDI), which had played a distinctly minor role in the revolution, took six seats (due largely, it was believed, to the King's support...

...He had to go down for May Day...

...Even so, the King has irrevocably committed himself to: "institutions which will permit the people to participate directly in the direction of public affairs...

...In April of this year, when Prime Minister Bekkai publicly associated himself with a protest by independents against such procedures, the Istiqlal irately withdrew from the cabinet...

...Religious holidays intervened...

...Much more notice was given the fact that the two Independent portfolios—and the all-important, nominally Istiqlal Ministry of Interior—had gone to men known for their close attachment to the throne...

...The monarch's eldest son, Crown Prince Moulay Hassan, 28, after being himself consulted by his royal sire, said sagely: "We must first choose a policy—then we will find the men...

...Ben Barka, in fact, has inadvertently betrayed in public his belief that Mohammed V is a political and cultural throwback who ought to be returned to a museum as soon as his usefulness is exhausted...

...A monarch whose power sprang from an Alawit dynasty dating back to the 17th century was not likely, no matter how great his benevolence, to welcome the excessive growth of any other force in the country...

...In December it was replaced by a cabinet in which the Istiqlal had ten regular portfolios...

...He has three ancient bearded royal counsellors to whose counsel he pays small heed and in whom he confides even less...

...There was no clear division of responsibility between cabinet and King...

...Both elements enjoyed enormous popularity at the moment of independence: the King as the noble sovereign who, despite his sufferings in French-imposed exile, never flinched in his demands for his people's freedom...

...Cabinet ministers should be responsible to the Prime Minister...

...King Mohammed and the Istiqlal Palace Maneuvers in Morocco By Hal Lehrman Rabat The political atmosphere in sovereign Morocco, which will be three years old in November, contains a pinch of French parfum fortified by large doses of incense from the Arabian Nights...

...He consulted with the Istiqlal, which went forth from this audience and announced just what they had given His Majesty to understand...

...To Istiqlal's critics and rivals, of course, this proposal was a transparent device for guarantee of a 100 per cent Istiqlal victory...

...The Istiqlal is as diversified as it is influential...

...Ironically, the French regard Mohammed V, whom they once threw out of his country, as their best friend in the new Morocco...

...Last November, after French arrest of five Algerian rebel leaders, the Istiqlal exploited the general uproar in the country to precipitate a cabinet crisis...

...The PDI, other splinter groups, and so-called "independents" were all seeking to divide the nation for private interest and personal aggrandizement, it said...

...Not that the PDI or the other anti-Istiqlal groups would show more liberalism if they were in the driver's seat...

...Western observers see him as moderate, statesmanlike, and Morocco's prime asset for stability...

...If Morocco was to move toward democratic forms, something had better be done about all this...

...Moroccan palace politics are generally shrouded in Byzantine fog, and the best-informed outside opinions can perhaps be taken at most as shrewd guesses...

...Municipal and communal elections will choose local assemblies...

...the monarch is a temporary convenience as a national symbol...

...Give us "homogeneous" control and we will write an election law and hold an election which will keep Morocco's enemies, internal and external, from fomenting unrest...

...Five other portfolios went to independents, and the Prime Ministry to M'barek Bekkai, a non-party man close to the monarch...

...The natural divergence of their prime interest brought the two elements into covert competition...

...Another royal Alawit cousin, young Moulay Ahmed Alawi, the palace's press chief, turned it even more neatly: "There is no government, but there is no crisis, because we have our King...

...For nearly a year now, legal Moroccan emigration to Israel has been virtually impossible, as a result of which Jews who previously had no particular desire to leave are now desperately seeking escape...

...A party which sought to become supreme over all other political groups, even if only to render better service to the nation and the throne, was not likely to tolerate forever a sovereign in whom the final and absolute power resided...

...Then word leaked out of a royal proclamation on liberties and procedures...

...But he also consulted with others, and they also spoke to the country as soon as they left the royal presence...

...On the whole, the Istiqlal is loyal to the Crown...

...A number of its older leaders, like National Security chief Mohammed Laghzaoui and Allal el-Fassi, the party's president (and chief ideologist of Moroccan irredentist expansion to its ancient imperial border of Senegal), would probably side with the King in a desperate choice between him and the party...

...The King's personal popularity had the edge: the party's position was fortified bv a nationwide organization...

...Announcement of a settlement was constantly rumored and constantly postponed...

...He possesses palaces, wives and other chattels innumerable...

...Collected within it are virtually all the elements which fought and defeated the Protectorate: the great merchant-families of Fez, whose wealth largely financed the party in its early struggles...

...We are on record as being in favor of holding national elections for a constituent assembly and legislative parliament, it added...

...A first provisional government established in November 1955, with the aged Grand Vizier and a handful of other notables in a kind of crown council, endured only a few weeks...

...the Istiqlal as the architect and army of the victory...

...the young nationalist elite, who gave the revolution its slogans and fagade...

...At present, there is only a Consultative Assembly, which "advises" cabinet and king...

...The days stretched into weeks...

...Hal Lehrman, author, lecturer and veteran foreign correspondent, has recently been covering the crisis in North Africa for the New York Post...

...The King said nothing...

...Their fourth and latest cabinet, formed May 12, emerged from a "crisis" which had gone the respectable distance of 27 days without visible distress to the technically ungoverned nation...

...So does the United States...

...But if Morocco makes any tangible progress in democratic manners during the years just ahead, more credit will probably go to the monarch in his djellaba than to Istiqlal's bright young men in their Paris-cut suits...