Morocco's Government

TGIF, everyone! And you know what Friday means -- blog post day! The main focus of this post will be Morocco's government. Both the country's general structure of government and its current political situation of are interest to me, especially as this coming Monday (Feb. 20) marks the one year anniversary of the Moroccan pro-democracy movement. Once again, all info comes from the CIA World Factbook entry on Morocco, unless otherwise noted. 

Prime Minister Abdelilah Benkirane

As I mentioned last week, Morocco is a constitutional monarchy. This means that the country has a monarch (in Morocco's case, a king) who rules within the parameters of a written constitution. The government approved a new constitution in July 2011. The current king is King Mohammed VI, but Morocco also has a prime minister who is the head of government, whose name is Abdelilah Benkirane. 

Morocco's legislative branch consists of a bicameral Parliament, which consists of the Chamber of Counselors, and the Chamber of Representatives. Whereas in the United States there are only two main political parties, the Democrats and the Republicans, in Morocco there are dozens of political parties with different agendas.   

King Mohammed VI

Although the protests of last February and March did lead to change, many Moroccans are still not satisfied with the results and want more reform. Most of their concern relates to the power of the government: does it actually have any weight, or is it merely a puppet of Mohammed VI's monarchy? According to a Washington Post article, protesters call the recent reforms "cosmetic" and do not find them substantive. The country still faces many economic and social challenges that the government has yet to resolve. It remains to be seen how the protests of Arab Spring in Morocco will shape the government; as of now, there's still a long way to go.