Late King Hassan II never got the chance to examine the outcome of the political succession experiment that he had launched in his late years, but his son Mohammed VI is now seeing, with his own eyes, how political activists, syndicate leaders and political symbols are embracing the creed of loyalty, more than anything else, despite the un-encouraging results they obtained, during the elections. Throughout his reign, Hassan II continued to battle his political opponents, with the help of the same weapons they used against him and by endorsing a series of constitutions, some of which were based on obsolete traditions, while others were more in accordance with the times. In consequence, the parties that just popped out of the magic hat of the wizard who controlled loyal political entities, from behind the cover of the interior ministry or the royal court, were parts of the game, aimed at tightening the siege around the opposition. However, it took four decades to finalize the first draft of the historic accord between the opposition and the royal palace. This period separates the government of Prime Minister Abdullah Ibrahim, formed in 1959 and the government of Abdul-Rahman Al-Yousefi, formed in 1998. This lapse of time was interspersed with bitter conflicts on various fronts. At the end of the day, the Socialist Union stepped forward to vote in favor of the amended constitution, paving thus the way for the elites of the former opposition to handle responsibilities of the government. The move in this direction got some help from some facts: the struggle of ideologies and options was forgotten, in favor of endorsing universal values, such as respecting human rights, cementing a peaceful mechanism for exchanging power, and endorsing the principle of coexistence, with no place to either monopoly, or ostracism. Nevertheless, this political experience, which put an end to the era of falsifying elections and marginalizing the will of voters, succumbed to pressures of another kind, including the rampant use of money to influence votes, despite the recourse to precautionary measures with legal and moral dimensions. In previous elections, the main political concern was related with the test of muscles and was subject to endless discussions. Nowadays, it is all about warnings about the threat posed by the dominance of money, elites, and electoral warlords. Was it necessary for Morocco to clone previous experiences, where parties were created on the eve of elections and where they used to win a majority thanks to votes that lacked integrity? Or did the gamble of moving forward towards a more pluralistic political field dictate such an adventure, i.e. the formation of a new political party that managed to turn the equation upside down on more than one front, at record time? Neither of the two questions can lead us to the right answer, because some insist on saying that the experience of political succession is almost run its course, not because those participating in it failed to adapt to the new positions and roles of the state, parties, syndicates and society, but because the challenges of the period, on both an economic and a social level, are much greater than the abilities of the political players. Thus, the vacuum created by the opposition's move to the heart of the parliament never disappeared. The least to say about this is that the procedures to prepare this move were not accompanied by a parallel effort to guarantee some sort of balance. In fact, political partners had worked to set specific goals that never went beyond sharing power, but they did not develop ideas to turn their new positions into influential tools. But even if this means that one era has come to an end, one must not necessarily ignore how it contributed, whether in establishing a different model to exchange power or in putting an end to political actions that were subject to criticism and errors. In the end, there is a preliminary understanding that elections are no longer a synonym of falsifying the voters' will. Whatever is agreed upon among political players, in both the ruling team and the opposition, even undecidedly, will mean one thing out of two: either that the new experiment surprised them in the middle of the road before they realized that they were its intended victims, for reasons that have to do with shortsightedness or mistaken assumptions, or that they were forced to surrender to the de facto situation until their regrouping would occur. Yet, one cannot understand the reason why the alliances, which were the outcome of a will to occupy influential positions in municipalities in towns and cities, were so random and chaotic. As a matter of fact, there are some people who still believe that getting “some booty is better than returning empty-handed”. Nonetheless, the real battle has only begun and it might be fought by another generation of politicians, businessmen, and intellectuals who might put behind them the experiments of the past five decades.
