NEW PARLIAMENT: MINORITY GOVERNMENT WITH SPOTLIGHT

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 RABAT 001647

SIPDIS

SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: DECL: 10/24/2017
TAGS: PGOV PREL MO
SUBJECT: NEW PARLIAMENT: MINORITY GOVERNMENT WITH SPOTLIGHT
ON KING'S MAN

Classified by Political Counselor Craig Karp for reasons 1.4
(b) and (d).


1. (C) Summary: Morocco's parliament has begun its new
session with a minority government composed of 146 members of
the 325 seat Chamber of Representatives. The failure of PM
Abbas El-Fassi's coalition negotiations led to direct
intervention by the Palace. The King reportedly gave a
cabinet list to the PM designate, who passed it on to the
parties. This sent one former majority party, the Mouvement
Populaire (MP),into the opposition, depriving the coalition
of a majority of seats. The government will for now remain
in power thanks to the support of a new 30-plus seat voting
bloc, "Tradition and Modernity," formed by Fouad Ali
El-Himma, royal intimate and newly minted MP.


2. (C) El-Himma, longtime "number two" in the Kingdom, has
now regained a high-profle role for himself in national
political life following his surprise resignation as Deputy
Interior Minister in the summer. His hardball political
style was revealed when he dropped one of his early bloc
allies for being too familiar. Many expect that El-Himma
will use the new parliamentary bloc as the base for a new
political party, possibly in the process positioning himself
to replace PM El-Fassi, whose government is widely perceived
as fragile. For now, however, El-Himma has simply been
elected Chairman of the parliament's Committee on Foreign
Affairs, Defense and Religion, a postion which will allow him
to remain involved with the Sahara negotiations, which he
used to lead. End summary.

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An Exclusive Club
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3. (C) In offering support in early October to the Prime
Minister designate, the Tradition and Modernity bloc allowed
Abbas El-Fassi, by then beleaguered after three weeks of
deadlocked negotiations with the political parties, to piece
together a minority governing coalition, composed of four
parties which together hold only 146 of the parliament's 325
seats. Within ten days of the King's opening of parliament,
El-Himma was elected, with a comfortable majority of 195
votes, Chairman of Parliament's committee for Foreign
Relations, Islamic Affairs, and Defense, easily the most
important of parliamentary committees.


4. (C) Political party contacts tell us many members of
parliament, particularly from the leftist USFP and
Berber-centric Popular Movement, each facing internal
leadership crises, have sought membership in the Tradition
and Modernity Bloc, but have been turned away by El-Himma,
seemingly content with the current size of the bloc. After
Abdullah El-Kadiri, leader of the National Democratic Party
(PND),claimed that Tradition and Modernity had merged with
his party, El-Himma delivered a stinging rebuke, describing
Kadiri's statement as "inopportune and unfounded." This
rebuke notwithstanding, at least eight of PND's 14 MPs remain
within the Tradition and Modernity bloc.

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A Step Backward for Democracy?
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5. (C) Veteran politician Driss Lachgar, a senior member of
the leftist USFP, warned of El-Himma's undemocratic power-
grab during an October 19 meeting with Polcouns. El-Himma's
appearance in the parliament was bringing Morocco back to the
politics of the 1960's and 70's when King Hassan II's
strong-armed henchmen, Interior Ministers Oufkir and (later)
Basri, overtly intervened in party politics. El-Himma's
raison d'etre in parliament, Lachgar sugggested, was to
expand the Palace's control and influence, subverting the
opposition. Lachgar evinced outrage that El-Himma would
flout Morocco's Political Party law, by plucking MPs from
other parties to join his group. (In point of fact, the law
allows MPs to join voting blocs but not to switch party
affiliation in the course of their elected terms.)


6. (C) Some commentators in the Moroccan press have gone
even further in their criticism: Ali Amar, Editor of the
leading (French) weekly "Le Journal," described El-Himma as a
"cannibal," who, in moving into parliament, had "devoured"
the Prime Minister and the cabinet, representing the Palace's
insatiable appetite to "nibble away" at all the political
power in Morocco. The El-Himma factor in parliament, he

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wrote, represented the "decline of politics" in the country
and the expansion of Palace power "on all fronts."

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...Or a Necessary Consolidation?
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7. (C) Other Moroccans have welcomed the emergence of
El-Himma's Tradition and Modernity bloc. A senior PND leader
recently told poloff she saw El-Himma's project as a "healthy
effort" to counter the "balkanization" of Morocco's political
landscape. Although the King, cabinet ministers, and outside
observers have called for consolidation of political forces
in Morocco, the opposite has been occurring: The number of
political parties in parliament increased after the September
elections from 22 to 24. While the law prohibits MPs elected
as representatives of one party to migrate to another, their
consolidation into a smaller number of voting blocs, in this
view, can only streamline the political process and minimize
partisan gridlock. That El-Himma, rather than an outsider or
a rebel, would be the one to preside over this consolidation,
can only make the process more desirable in the eyes of the
Palace.

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The Way Ahead
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8. (C) Many observers believe that the Tradition and
Modernity bloc is a precursor to a political party El-Himma
intends to form, perhaps with "no ideology other than
advancing the Palace's agenda," as one political party
contact suggested to us. Barring a change in the current
political party law, El-Himma would not be able to draw from
MPs elected as members of other parties, but the Tradition
and Modernity bloc could nonetheless be a useful platform
from which to organize a party. Others believe that, in
building a strong political base within the parliament,
El-Himma is positioning himself to succeed El-Fassi as Prime
Minister, with many, even coalition partners of the
government, predicting that El-Fassi's government will be
short-lived. At a minimum, it is clear that El-Himma will be
a key power broker in the parliament and likely a significant
force in broader politics, in the coming years.




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Riley