Moroccans still love their 'hip' king
By Sinikka Tarvainen
RABAT (DPA): One year after Morocco's King Mohammed VI came to the throne, the honeymoon period shows no signs of cooling.
Morocco is still in a state of optimistic expectation, and people speak warmly of the 36-year-old monarch who not only wears his heart on his sleeve -- he is known as "the king of the poor" -- but has also shown he can be tough if need be.
Driving his own car and walking the crowds with little regard to security measures, Mohammed's style is light years away from that of his father Hassan II, and one Western news magazine even dubbed him "the Beatles of Arabian royalty".
When Mohammed became king after Hassan's death on July 23, 1999, Moroccans were worried about his shyness and lack of experience.
Many people missed King Hassan who -- despite appearing to have little regard for the country's impoverished masses and having the blood of many opponents on his hands -- had kept the kingdom from edging towards a social chaos.
Yet now, Hassan's 38-year rule is judged in increasingly harsh terms, and Mohammed's accession to the throne is often described as a great opportunity.
"The future has become possible again," writer Abdellatif Laabi said.
Where Hassan stood for stability, Mohammed stands for modernizing the centuries-old Alawite kingdom.
He immediately rolled up his sleeves, sacking Hassan's powerful interior minister Driss Basri, allowing Hassan's political opponents to return from exile and setting up a commission to provide US$4 million in compensation to victims of political repression.
The regime is also seeking to improve the rights of women and to boost tourism by instructing all citizens to prevent beggars or would-be "guides" from harassing travelers.
Dozens of senior officials loyal to Hassan's reactionary old guard have been sacked, around 100 corrupt customs officials have been dispatched to shepherd goats in the Sahara, and some 50 corrupt judges have lost their jobs.
Mohammed even had the confidence to release his perhaps most dangerous critic, Islamic fundamentalist leader Sheikh Abdessalam Yassine, from his 10-year house arrest.
The active king has completely outshone the large and slow- moving government of Socialist Premier Abderrahmane Youssoufi. Moroccans see the king as the "good guy" and blame most problems on the inefficiency of the government, observers say in Rabat.
So far, so good but Mohammed still has a daunting task. More than 55 percent of the population of 30 million is illiterate, a quarter of the active population is unemployed, economic growth is near zero after a drought decimated the harvest, and hundreds of thousands of new rural exiles are thronging into city slums.
In the countryside, the vast majority of people have neither electricity nor running water. One poll showed that more than 70 percent of Moroccans want to emigrate.
The increase of freedom has prompted increasing expressions of discontent. Human rights groups and other non-governmental organizations are mushrooming, students and trade unions stage rallies, Islamists and feminists disagree about women's rights.
The regime seems hesitant about just how much freedom the society can take. Press freedom has greatly increased, but censorship is still exercised. Rallies are sometimes allowed and sometimes repressed.
The urban middle class would like the king to move as fast as possible. But Mohammed VI knows that he has to work through many traditional attitudes and outdated administrative structures, and that he has to tread carefully if he does not want to risk a social explosion.