The Project of Advanced Regionalisation in Morocco: Analysis of a Lampedusian Reform

Abstract

This article examines the project of advanced regionalisation in Morocco, in which the King Mohammed VI plays a key role. Through a comparative analysis of the adjustments and resiliencies of the project, contrasted with previous regionalisation reforms, the article contends that contention dynamics in Morocco, Tunisia and Egypt have had a relevant impact on the way in which the project made its way in the Moroccan institutional sphere. The article finds that the eruption of the Arab Uprisings in North Africa and protests in Morocco has been a key factor in paradoxically fostering the king's power, allowing him to consolidate himself as the unique driving force behind the reform of regional administration.The decision to undertake a project of advanced regionalisation in Morocco was announced by King Mohammed VI in January 2010, well before street protests ousted dictators in Tunisia and Egypt and spread to Morocco. At that time, the reform was presented to the public as a new phase of Morocco's regionalisation policy and as a strategy for modernising the country. However, the public presentation of the final project was officially made when the first Moroccan demonstrations had already taken place. The project was used to justify the need for a constitutional reform, which was the king's main response to popular demands for democracy, social justice and the end of corruption. In that context of political turmoil, his inauguration of the advanced regionalisation project passed largely unnoticed by most political parties and civil society organisations, though they had previously taken part in the public debate about it. Likewise, the project was temporarily dropped from the political agenda of the current government, which took three years to propose a draft law for the implementation of the reform. Only a few activist groups and political parties based in specific territories, where regional differences are relevant and traditionally present, continued in the interim to demand institutional recognition of regional particularism, a greater degree of self-government and the legalisation of regional parties-a norm which is absent, anyway, from the final draft of the advanced regionalisation project.The unfolding of the 'Arab Spring' in Morocco has highlighted a number of contradictions, such as the simultaneous promotion of change and maintenance of

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