Even if the king's hand was forced, he nevertheless may have blunted popular anger by making genuine concessions, of the sort that no other head of state in the Arab world has had the courage to make. The demonstrations of the spring did, in fact, subside in the aftermath of an extraordinary televised speech March 9 in which the King promised real change, and the promulgation in June of the new constitution. And even February 20 activists concede that Moroccans' genuine reverence for the monarchy curbed the force and reach of the protests. Morocco's government, headed by the moderately Islamist Justice and Development Party (PJD), is now trying to work out a new modus operandi with the palace.
Nor was the new constitution simply an astute political move. Despite its flaws and a good deal of remaining ambivalence, the new constitution makes the prime minister "chief of government" (as opposed to an instrument of the palace), stipulates the competence of the government to decide policy in virtually all domestic areas (though not in defense or national security), and clarifies that only the parliament has the standing to create law (though the king retains the right to issue decrees within his own sphere, which includes the regulation of religion and the military). The document enumerates a comprehensive list of individual rights, such as are found in most European constitutions, and commits Morocco to the protection of human rights "as they are universally understood."
Many of my conversations in Morocco revolved around the question of how the constitution has been implemented since the PJD government was elected last November. There is a widespread feeling that the new government, led by Abdelilah Benkirane, a wily populist, suffers from a timidity bred by years of cautious accommodation with the makhzen, as Morocco's wider network of power and privilege is known. The party has yet to pass any of the organic laws required to put the constitution into effect, or to seriously challenge the king's traditional powers. Party members complain that the palace has blocked their efforts. The king wants to keep appointing the heads of 37 public bodies, including the office of phosphates -- Morocco's chief export by far -- and television and radio. The government wants to whittle the number down to half a dozen. It's an important test of wills.
But it may also be beside the point. Politics in Morocco, as elsewhere in the Arab world, has long been an elite game. The reforms that Mohammed VI has instituted since assuming the throne in 1999 have succeeded in persuading a significant part of the Moroccan elite, including intellectuals, that he is the key to the country's future. But the elite game has ended: The young and the disenfranchised have stopped accepting the bleak future that stretched before them. In this regard, the new constitutional dispensation feels like the answer to a question February 20 didn't ask. The protestors steered clear of the king, though it's hard to say if out of fear or reverence, but they did angrily question the role of the éminences grises of the palace, especially of Mounir Majidi, who both serves as the king's secretary and oversees his colossal wealth. (Mohammed VI is richer than any monarch without oil and richer than many with oil, including the Emir of Qatar.) When the crowds denounced corruption and privilege, they were thinking, if not of the king himself -- that would be lèse-majesté -- than certainly of the makhzen.
Morocco is a very poor country (a little better off than Egypt, a good deal worse off than Tunisia), and the Benkirane government will probably not be able to do much to change that. The resentment that gave rise to February 20 will continue to fester. Moroccans may increasingly find themselves balancing their reverence for the king with their frustration at their lot. And they won't keep blaming the government, rather than the palace, forever. Both are sorely in need of patience; but it's not clear how much they will have, or deserve.
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