Can Moroccans Still Take Benkirane Seriously?

Sidi Ifni – Every time an event occurs in Morocco, the question that comes to mind is: “Is Abdelilah Benkirane serious?” We Moroccans have the inalienable right to ask and wonder about the seriousness of Benkirane in taking action against the aberrations happening in this country.

Now that no corrupt official has been brought to justice, we should take for granted that our head of the government is not serious about the aspirations Moroccans have long called for.

‘Nothing is serious as long as we are still in the lead,’ Benkirane might think. From now on, it is no longer of use raising the issue of corruption before Benkirane. We might rather need to draw his attention to the aberrations characterizing some officials in charge of the government and see to what extent he takes things seriously.

An MP was recently caught playing ‘Solitaire’ during discussions of the draft 2013 Budget Bill in the House of Representatives. Upon this aberration, Moroccans went enraged, for it was they who voted for the MP to defend their rights and represent them at the parliament. Yet, no one has heard Abdelilah Benkirane reacting against this new aberration. “What for?” Benkirane might wonder. “Isn’t the well-being of Moroccans more important than discussing the ignominious act of the MP?”

Such plausible statements which bear much resemblance to many others that have been uttered by Benkirane, only give us the impression that Benkirane is not serious as a head of the government. So as to test the seriousness of Benkirane, we had better learn about how heads of government in developed countries usually react to such aberrations.

Some may intervene to say that Benkirane is not concerned about all this humbug. But, does not the constitution grant the head of the government the right to scrutinize the state institutions in case something is amiss there. In reality, several officials have proved to be in the wrong places, but nothing has been done, which confirms the statement that Benkirane is not living up to people’s expectations.

As usual, the crux of the matter is that Abdelilah Benkirane pretends to forget easily about calamities. Here, Moroccans still vividly remember the worst-ever traffic crash that claimed 49 lives in the south of the country. “In developed countries that hold human resources in high regard, governments resign upon such accidents,” was Benkirane’s response to the catastrophe. If we contemplate his response deeply, we will find that it hints at the fact that since the current government has not resigned, it must mean that it does not hold human resources in high regard as simply as this.

“We will not promote teachers with diplomas; the government is going through hard times,” Mohamed El Ouafa addressed teachers who were M.A. and B.A. holders from the 2012 recruits . Last year, with the winds of the Arab Spring blowing across Morocco, the Istiqlal-led government promoted all teachers meeting the diploma criterion. However, with the new government, it appears that El Ouafa does not take the educational system seriously. If he were serious, he would have chosen to motivate teachers rather than demotivate them with the flimsy excuse that the government is facing an unprecedented crisis.

At a time when a serious government attempts not to play with sensitive sectors, our minister of education has adopted a different approach turning fun into his motto. “It is time you got married,” the minister addressed a young schoolgirl. Whenever the minister was attacked on the basis of this ‘mocking’ statement, he explained that he was only joking with the girl and this wasn’t worth all this controversy.

By coincidence, the same was true of the solitaire player when he unveiled his anonymity. He, for his part, explained that it was not worth all the commotion on Facebook. What he did, for him, was a form of escapism. Seriousness is, among other things, another trait the current government lacks. I believe this is why Moroccans no longer take Abdlilah Benkirane’s speeches as seriously as they used to do before the elections.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Morocco World News’ editorial policy