Morocco's King Mohammed VI has walked a delicate line between monarchy and democracy, introducing a new, more liberal constitution in March 2011 as protests broke out throughout the country. This "third way" stalled the demonstrations, but some doubt these changes will be more than cosmetic. The king has cultivated an image based on openness and charity work -- he's been called "the king of the poor." In a dispatch for Foreign Policy, James Traub describes his public relations campaign: "the lead item on the news almost every evening is the king, in djellaba and fez, inaugurating a new maternity hospital, or mosque, or anti-poverty initiative." But when not appearing in photo ops on state-owned television stations, he comes across as aloof given his enormous wealth -- an estimated $2.5 billion dollars -- while a quarter of Moroccans live below the international poverty line.
Above, a man sells pocket packs of tissues in the medina in Rabat, Morocco, in February of last year.
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