Rabat – As Morocco’s general elections are rapidly approaching, scheduled for September 8, some Moroccan parties are raising concerns over the latest electoral reforms. Morocco World News (MWN) reached out to Abdelwahed Deriouch, the speaker of the House of Councillors, the upper chamber of the Moroccan, to clarify the situation on the ground.
“The recent reforms have sparked a large debate on the national level,” Deriouch said, specifying the “electoral quotient [reforms] will enter into effect in the upcoming elections.” The electoral quotient, also known as the electoral threshold, is a set minimum share of the vote which either the candidate or party must reach before they can be represented in the national legislature.
Electoral quotient
In the years prior to the reforms, between 2002 and 2016, the electoral threshold was calculated by the total number of valid votes, which consists of actual votes cast, excluding protest votes left blank and not considering those constituents that have registered to vote but chose not to.
Under the old system, if there were 80,000 valid votes, they would have been split by the number of seats, Deriouch explained to MWN. In this system, he added, if a party like the ruling Justice and Development Party (PJD) got 40,000 votes in a regional election, it would result in them holding two or three seats in the parliament. As a consequence, other, especially smaller, parties are deprived of representation.
The new reforms will now see parliamentary seats being distributed based on the number of registered voters, rather than votes cast. While the threshold used to be calculated by dividing the number of valid votes by the number of seats in the region, it will now be calculated by dividing the total of all registered voters by the number of seats.
Extrapolating from a 43% voter turnout in the 2016 elections, the new reforms would make it unlikely for any party to pass the threshold, thus preventing them from collecting multiple seats in a particular area.
For Deriouch, this is the best way forward, as the new system will prevent major parties from attaining two or three seats, thus ensuring fair representation for smaller parties, like the Unified Socialist Party (PSU) or the Party of Progress and Socialism (PPS).
“The main reason the legislature has put this measure of calculating electoral quotient based on registered voters instead of valid votes – people who actually went to the ballot – is to raise the rate of votes and give all parties, at the moment of votes’ distribution, the opportunity of being represented in parliament,” the MP told MWN.
At the moment, big parties like PJD currently hold 125 seats in the House of Representatives, but under the new system they could get no more than 80 seats, Deriouch added.
The MP stressed that the main aim of the reforms is to allow for a “just and democratic representation” of all parties, particularly by limiting the control Morocco’s major parties used to exert over the electoral distribution system. “[The goal is] to guarantee fair representativeness for small parties, and reduce the omnipresence of big parties in both chambers,” Deriouch added.
There are some parties who are not in favor of the reforms though. For example, the PJD has shown considerable resistance “from the beginning,” the MP told MWN. Deriouch believes that the Saad Eddine El Othmani-led party intends to gather even more seats than they got in 2016, to cement the party’s place in the formation of the government.
The elections
Speaking earlier this month at a press forum organized by the Moroccan Press Agency (MAP), El Othmani said the upcoming general election could be postponed because of the worsening epidemiological situation in Morocco. When asked about the statement, Deriouch confirmed that while “the punctuality of elections is a constitutional principle,” given the state of the pandemic, “many have raised this question.”
But postponing elections at this point remains a difficult task, not only because such a sudden change in schedule would greatly affect the country’s political, institutional balance, but also because of “the general conduct of constitutional institutions,” Deriouch said. He noted that “there is nothing in the constitution that could clearly help bring into the decision of postponing the elections.”
The MP pointed to Article 42 of the Moroccan constitution, which reads: “The King… sees to respect for the Constitution, to the good functioning of the constitutional institutions.” Other similar provisions, such as Articles 96, 97, and 96, could also be used to make a case for postponing the elections.
For Deriouch, postponing the election is possible from a theoretical, constitutional, or a political standpoint, “but at a practical level, it is hard.”
“Postponing elections will not curb the pandemic,” he told MWN, because “people are going out anyhow, students are going back to school by September.” Accordingly, Deriouch suggested, the solution entails preventative measures, expanding the vaccination campaign, and encouraging political parties to comply with social distancing in electoral campaigns.
“The question is whether postponing elections will have an effect or not,” the MP pondered. While there has been talk about postponing the elections, there has not been anything official on the topic. Deriouch doesn’t really believe that anything official on the subject will be announced anytime soon. After all, the campaigns have already begun. Instead, the MP urges Morocco’s political parties to refrain from large gatherings. Instead, they should use social media for campaigning.
But there is another, equally important, question for Deriouch: will constituents vote in the traditional way, using ballots? Will the vote take place through postal mail? “I really don’t know,” he said. Ultimately, he conceded,“we will go through a risky phase but I don’t think it will be critical.”
