by Chris Bodenner
The referendum we highlighted a few weeks ago passed last Friday with a laughable 98% of the vote:
[Democracy campaigner] Mountazar Drissi said there were numerous cases of multiple voting, while people were bussed in from the countryside to vote in cities. He was speaking after thousands of people took to the streets on Sunday to demand further political changes. Mr Drissi says that King Mohammed VI still wields too much power. "He can control everything – we want the power to belong to the people," he told the BBC's Network Africa programme.
Shadi Hamid sees the referendum's passage as a victory for autocracy. Paul Bonicelli, by contrast, celebrates the new constitution as a move away from "oriental despotism." James Dorsey thinks it could go either way:
The Moroccan experiment is likely to be a model for other North African and Middle Eastern states no matter how it ends. A successful transition toward a democratic, constitutional monarchy would be a model for managing change with little or no pain. It would make Morocco the only nation in the region to break with autocratic rule in cooperation with rather than despite the government. But if the process fails because the king has a change of heart or his changes stop short of the minimum protesters are willing to accept Morocco could emerge as the Arab revolt’s greatest failure.
Hisham Almiraat provides translated reax from the Moroccan blogosphere.
(Video recording, via 24 Mamfakinch, allegedly shows Moroccans altering ballot boxes containing votes on the July 1 referendum. Any bits of translation from Dish readers are always welcome.)
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