“In the drama playing out across North Africa and the Middle East, Morocco, it seems, is going off script,” pointed out Time magazine. “The country suffers from deeply entrenched corruption, an official unemployment rate close to 10% (unofficial rates are suspected to be much higher), some of the greatest discrepancies of wealth in the Arab world and a notably restricted press.
But although protests convulsed dozens of Moroccan cities on Sunday … no one was calling for outright revolution. Revolution, after all, would mean overturning the country’s supreme ruler. And no one, at least publicly, wants to depose King Mohammed VI.” Time noted that the reasonably progressive Mohammed is compared favourably with his “tyrant” father Hassan II and, for the time being at least, seems unlikely to be unseated by the wave of protest engulfing the Arab street.
“Despite his near absolute power, many Moroccans view the King separately from the rest of government — not just Parliament, but also the notorious Makzhen, or palace elite, who control vast amounts of the nation’s wealth and pull the political strings behind the scenes,” noted Time.
> periscopepost.com
