The Sideshow Consensus

Government to the Right of it, Opposition and Civil Society to the Left of it; into the valley of superficial debates rode the lonely real issues of the economy. Or perhaps it serves both parties well to focus their energy on the debate on executive oversight over the public media network. It suits the conservative government fine because economic news and the (rare) forecasts aren’t predicting rosy years ahead, and the opposition, scattered within and outside the institutions, is left to clinch on purely secondary, or narrowly defined interest-related issues;

Anything to get the public distracted.

Don’t get me wrong, human right abuses and predatory behaviour from high up are not to be disparaged, and even the Football stuff going around is worthy of consideration – although I cannot recall an instance with an interest (even passion) as strong as that displayed whenever the FLP Derby were up. Colonial alienation, moi?

And yes, even the farcical (at this point) trial of #Feb20 figurehead rapper Mouad can be a noble cause to take up and fight for. But why is there so little attention devoted to the economic issues?

To the media’s defence, there were some pieces run in major newspapers about how the government’s coffers were replenished at a higher level compared to 2011. But these were just reports copied straight from official documents released by the Finance Ministry. No particularly insightful comments were made about the worsening state of public finances, the debt or the deficit. And what about the government’s bravado on the Compensation fund reform and their boast on how they’d curb economic special interests. No one to call the conservative PJD on their empty promises, but then again, parliamentary opposition is just as feckless as the ‘civil society’ platform’s vain interest in an agenda that ranks far behind pocketbook issues.

No one is calling Ministers Boulif, Azami, Baraka or even the Head of Government for their handling on their economy, and their bluff on how they can keep up with the Government’s pledge to restore a 5.5% average growth by 2016, or the subsidies allocated by the Compensation Fund. The opposition, notably Ahmed ‘Wonderboy’ Reda Chami writing a full (Facebook) post denouncing the Communications Ministry’s handling of public media, instead of doing a meaningful job at the Budget and Finances committee.

#Boulif via @leconomiste_ …suppression de la subvention du fuel pr l’ONE, augmentation du tarif de l’électricité pour les tranches élevées

No news about the fuel subsidy as far as I can tell, though.

— PJD Officiel (@PJDofficiel) January 19, 2012

#Boulif via @leconomiste_ Le CDG sera lié à ses ministres par un tableau de bord et des objectifs à atteindre dans différents domaines.

— PJD Officiel (@PJDofficiel) January 19, 2012

@mounirbensalah @MoorishWanderer @bigbrother_ma @sniper_ma 7% est l’obj. de croiss. à atteindre en fin de législature ie. pr l’année 2016

— PJD Officiel (@PJDofficiel) January 10, 2012

Failure to Lead or Failure to Think Outside the Box? A Reality Check for the Government

Time and again I like to listen to Abdelilah Benkirane statement to Parliament; the government’s roadmap is more comprehensive than that, but those issues Mr Benkirane talked about are obviously important for him to elaborate on, in his typical, florid style. The latest press conference did not deviate much from that spirit, it seems.

His speech was very much “Back to Basics” of sorts; it seems the PJD-led government’s talking points evolve around economic benefits from anti-corruption policies and small cuts in equipment and procurement budgets, in terms of spurring growth and halving deficits; and while I understand my passion for Debt-related issues isn’t mainstream, I strongly believe it is the government’s duty not to endanger future generations in their livelihoods with irresponsible spendings.

@MoorishWanderer @hyperconnard Si Zouhair, not everyone shares your passion for fiscal and budget discussions

— PJD Officiel (@PJDofficiel) February 23, 2012

Why do I sound so adamant the new government be held immediately accountable to every policy they announce? Aren’t they supposed to enjoy the 100 days honeymoon? Sure they do, but then again, Mr Benkirane has flip-flopped very early on by emphasising his commitment to pursue past policies; in fact, he boasts most Moroccans were already happy with earlier schemes, among others Plan Maroc Vert, the High-speed TGV line, the future Solar Energy policy and many other Grands Chantiers the public opinion is carefully kept away from discussing before implementation. Since the 27th government has not stated a novel policy agenda, it is only right to hold them accountable on ongoing policies as well. After all, most of the new opposition has been associated with these policies for at least a decade, so actual opposition to government (elected and otherwise) policies has to come from outside Parliament.

The most persistent item in government institutions is the problematic existence of a growing deficit and the mounting public debt; This is certainly no anti-Keynesian rhetoric to denounce a deficit that does not spur growth, benefits a privileged few and encourages rent-seeking economic activities.

Lahcen Daoudi, Minister for Higher Education and PJD Bigwig, has recently unveiled his strategy to reign-in his departmental budget, and it seems the measures he proposes are cosmetic, and if anything are focused on too little too superficial cuts, with no immediate agenda to bolster Higher Education and Research. It seems the Minister, in his maiden set of policies, is convinced he can address his department’s hardships with Mani Pulite measures:

- L’on parle de politique d’austérité menée au sein de votre département. Combien comptez-vous économiser sur les dépenses?

- C’est la chasse au gaspi sur tout, les frais de carburant, les véhicules… Nous comptons serrer la ceinture et économiser autour de 5 millions de DH rien que dans le budget de fonctionnement. Ces économies iront aux œuvres sociales du personnel. D’ailleurs, nous allons ouvrir un restaurant dédié aux 800 personnes qui travaillent au ministère. Il y a aussi des aberrations qui n’ont aucun sens. Imaginez que nous avons un immeuble en location à 135.000 DH alors que le ministère est propriétaire d’immeubles vides!

It looks as though the deficit can be halved with modest cuts; for a government whose only immediate success is most likely to increase the deficit relative to GDP way above the 3% limit they have pledged not to cross (a tale-telling breach of commitment about how serious the government on fiscal responsibility) I would suggest this government has started on a wrong footing when it comes to assert its competence to master economic policy and bring about economic stability. In his latest press conference, Mr Benkirane forecasts an increase in employment and a positive outlook for domestic and investment. I unfortunately do not share his optimism, not with the latest batch of figures HCP released for 2012 at hand:

Le Produit Intérieur Brut (PIB) devrait enregistrer, sur la base des hypothèses susmentionnées, une hausse de 4,5% en volume au lieu de 4,8% estimé pour 2011. Ce scénario moyen de croissance serait réalisé dans un contexte marqué par une légère hausse de l’inflation. La hausse du niveau général des prix, approché par le prix implicite du PIB, passerait de 1,6% en 2011 à 2,5% en 2012.

House Of Cards – “Playing The Last Cards On The Deck”

It’s a bit of a lullaby, more of a leitmotiv really: many dedicated Feb20 activists and supporters believe the Regime is burning their last fuses to save its skin. I would tend to offer a different point of view, though the premise of both theories is one.

The fuse theory is a good example of how the Makhzen apparatus works: as a small-coalition government, there is every now and then a growing resentment with say, elite circulation or social mobility, or indeed the widening wealth gap among the lesser population, not lucky enough to carry the right family name or degree to be co-opted. And so, the ‘Blob’ neutralizes a potentially troublesome player by giving in seemingly on what they covet most: in Mr Benkirane’s case, his appointment as Head Of Government was Aid Kebir come true. He wanted to be the guy who got the moderate Islamists into government, and that he did. He has made it into the history books, and it is up to his party to live up to this promise. A Win-Win for both the palace and PJD, to the tune of 45% turnout and the fairest elections yet.

I'm sorry, but you have got it wrong

But this is not how the regular Feb20 fan would see things: the PJD election is a last-ditch effort to defuse public discontentment, and sooner or later, this unpopular government will crumble before our very eyes, and only then the regime will officially start to negotiate by then with a victorious Feb20 movement. The script goes wrong however, for it understates, or completely preclude other variables.

- Numbers that do not exist: PJD has mustered a historic 1 Million votes (historic for one single opposition party, that is) and well, in so far, there are no quantitative measures to speak of when it comes to the Feb20 coalition-building, and that is the clinch of the game: a social movement keen on changing things cannot afford to entertain a foggy estimation of their strength. And for a group of people ready to take to the street every Sunday, the sole indicator of popularity and efficiency remains the number of demonstrators; and the way I see it, this is a losing battle; So buying off PJD for government does look like an overkill as per the fuse theory: if anything, the coalition will last in all likelihood all the way up to 2016. 5 years are too long a time horizon for the movement to sustain itself, not the least in terms of popular support, if any.

- What the movement wants: no way a constitutional reform is back on the table in a year’s notice, let alone the dissolution of government or parliament; liberation of political detainees, well… easy come easy go, and even if HRW frowns upon Morocco’s less than pristine Human Rights record, our officials can afford to look bad, in fact, every released prisoner is a show of good faith, and it keeps the Feb20 crowd busy, losing sight of the broader picture. The remaining pieces of the agenda are less consensual, though.

The remaining points are policy measures the motley of platforms within the movement will clash on: minimum wage, employing jobless graduates and improving public services involves a lot of technocratic stuff that many Feb20 slogans have abandoned; And the truth is, the constitutional reforms and human rights are basically the only slogans vague enough for many HR activists to rally behind; anything beyond it is so contentious that every interest just gives in to a blurry consensus.

- No One Speaks for the People: it is just right down pretentious to believe that the movement speaks for the people as a whole. No one does in fact, and there is no way to check it out unless one is running a successful and reliable polling company. The movement speaks for a coalition, a subset of the heterogeneous crowd, and so far that coalition has failed to move up from the initial stage of breaking ice to boosting up organizations and parties.

Bottom line: there are other ways for pro-democracy activists to show their strength and in their own terms – get people registered to boost the electoral corps, lobby policy-makers through policy proposals, and most of all, re-arrange priorities. I assume a pro-democracy platform looks for the broader and most inclusive coalition of interest; then go to the bottom of it and hit on the hot buttons: a simple link between private monopolies and the high level of prices is just enough to get a lot of people behind the cause, for instance. While it is true these slogans are chanted from time to time, they are not the centre-piece of Feb20 agenda, even though these particular bread-and-butter issues are more likely to cause damage, not the release of a second-rate rapper. In a sense, it is rather the movement, not the regime, that is running out of time.

I do realize I am definitely drifting toward an all-technocratic discourse, and blogging in English doesn’t help. But let us face it: there is a mainstream discourse within Feb20 that does care much for policy proposals and methodological thinking. Too bad, I’m perfectly content by remaining confined in my (convex) universe

“A Politician Who Stays Poor is Poor at Politics”

From Carlos ‘Hank’ Gonzalez, cited in Bruce Bueno De Mesquita & Alastair Smith’s latest book: “The Dictator’s Handbook”.  I heard of the book when Fareed Zakaria invited De Mesquita to his show Global Public Square and there was a discussion about how Game Theory applies to political science and prediction of downfall of various regimes.

The Dictator's way of clinging on to power (Charlie Chaplin, from the 1939 movie "The Dictator")

The book is very literal, meaning that no particular concepts are invoked to make the authors’ point. They do however talk about “Winning Coalition”, and “Essentials”, which translate in cooperative game theory into similar concepts, and essentials qualify as veto-players for instance. But still, I am about to finish up reading the book, and some excerpts are truly insightful: how a figure of authority clings on to power, buys off loyalty and insures transition is as smooth as possible to their heirs (apparent). De Mesquita and Smith give some interesting explanations on how dictators like Robert Mugabe and Kim Jong-Il have managed to remain in office for so long even though they have ruled poor, isolated countries bloated with repression, corruption and nepotism; in facts, it is precisely because both dictators have managed to pay off their supporters -Mugabe notably managed to maintain the army on payroll- and keep them in line.

But the authors did not just match anecdotes with more formalized models: the key concept to their analysis is relatively simple; for any given country, there are three layers of political power:

- The Nominal “Selectorate”: that would be every citizen living within the given country. In semi-democratic and democratic countries, that would be the overall registered voters, because they have an individual power to theoretically influence every bit of decision-making process; the downside of such a wide power base is their interchangeability: one voter is just as good as another. As pointed out later on, governments, even in the most democratic countries, rarely need to muster an absolute majority of votes to get into office (and that particularly applies to the semi-democratic Kingdom of Morocco)

- The Real/Actual “Selectorate”: This is the group of people who are close enough to power to influence -at various degrees- rulers; they are, by various degrees again, decision-makers by themselves.

- Winning Coalitition Members: these are “the inner circle” without which the leader cannot hope to remain in power; their influence, power and own ambitions are such that their loyalty, bought off through appointments to high office or with outright bribery, is essential to hold on to power.

In a sense, the essential operating principle of these three concentric circles is the same across countries, whatever their level of political openness: the authors have brought up the example of USSR: Soviet citizens were after all eligible to vote, but the candidates they picked were already filtered and chosen by the Actual electorate, those members of the ruling Communist Party; as for broad policy decisions, these are taken and sanctioned at a higher level, with the Politburo and the Praesidium of the Soviets; The ousting of N. Khrushchev in 1965 is eloquent an example: members of the Politburo, fed up with some of his policies, sought his removal and replacement with a more amenable leader to their own needs; Khrushchev might have had the good of Soviet citizens at heart, but he had failed to deliver to his own comrades.

Democracies, on the other hand, have their own ‘corrupt’ means to bring together and then satisfy the winning coalition: Pork-barrel programs (US President Johnson used it a lot, a strategy he used so successfully when he was the Senate Majority Leader) are very usual in the United States congress, and in a sense, so are Knighthoods and other honours for the House of Lords in the United Kingdom. Paying off for support and loyalty takes various forms, and the wider the power-base, the more they are likely to be public goods.

The distinction between public and private goods is crucial in the differences in how democracies and autocratic regimes reward their supporters: private goods are there for the ruler to bestow on their supporters – but these private goods quickly reach their limit when the actual selectorate grows larger, typically in liberal democracies; they then revert to public goods, in shape of a hospital or a road near a loyal community, or preferential treatment and recruitment in the civil service.

Overall the book is highly recommended to read. And the pleasant style used to illustrate each concept used by the authors to make their point strikes a balance between hidden esoteric algebra and simplistic generalizations: when De Mesquita and Smith refer to winning coalitions, they are defining a key concept of coalition-building in cooperative game theory, an outcome that is conditioned by the existence of a convex hull of feasible and desirable set of outcomes, as well as well-defined and rational utility functions to each player, all of which involve a lot of topology concepts that would make rather confuse the laymen. (my former tutor, Marco Scarsini, produced some eminent papers on that subject)

How does Morocco fare in all this? I distinctly remember De Mesquita bring up Morocco as an example of successful liberalization process in the wake of the Arab spring, and perhaps they did better compared to incumbents in Tunisia and Egypt. The fact of the matter is, the more I read about how the book frames power-sharing and how incumbents curry favour with their supporters have reminded me of John Waterbury’s own seminal work “The Commander Of the Faithful”; By the authors’ standard, Morocco charts the middle course: there is a relatively widespread actual selectorate, and there are enough influential around to weight in when necessary to remind power-holders they are needed.

As the authors pointed out repeatedly throughout the book, there is no such thing as ‘Absolute Rule’: the argument that an autocrat has to rely on some sort of Praetorian guard to retain their power. So in essence, power in Morocco is not absolute, it is diluted around in concentric circles; this, of course, is a well-known concept, as Mohamed Sassi brought it up in 2006; and very little has changed since then – it is up to the new government to wrestle control over specific departments by building their own winning coalitions, either by bringing some new, fresh outsiders or by attracting disgruntled members of the existing inside coalition by offering more rewards: some representatives of the business community (Karim Tazi, Miloud Châabi, among others) have been early backers of the Feb20 protests, a sign perhaps of their dissatisfaction with how the inner circle roughs them up on particular business deals.

What about the Left in Morocco? What sort of coalition can they build around to force a distribution of power to their advantage? Since the proclaimed principle of power transfer as recognized by most of the left-wingers is regular elections (how ever loud they shout slogans when they take to the streets) there is a need for some sort of coalition building that strikes a balance between wide but diffuse popular support, and corporatist interests.

Wandering Thoughts, Vol.15

A few days back in Morocco are quite short to spend with one’s family and acquaintances – but hey, I suppose it’s great to be back anyway, even for a short time.

A few things to discuss perhaps (given a very busy schedule and burdensome workload inherited from the Fall semester, among others) that do not relate strictly to the main topics this blog usual posts about. Or perhaps it does: Parti Socialiste Unifié is organizing this weekend their convention, and well… I am very ambivalent about it all. At no time during the opening day was there any feeling that perhaps the strategic choice of backing up Feb20 all the way up (or down) instead of taking a step back and consider the bigger picture: PSU is there for a long time, the movement, clearly not. More on that, later.

I have also taken to watch some new TV shows as well – namely, Hart Of Dixie (yes, I know…) Boardwalk Empire and Pan Am (Yes, I know!) and believe you me, they are worth watching, really!

Hart Of Dixie was not my idea; I started listening to some Otis Taylor tracks (Ten Million Slaves is easily recognizable for those who enjoyed watching Public Enemies) and the trailer was interesting enough: a glossy, too-good-to-be-true freshly graduated New Yorker Doctor Zoe Hart (Rachel Bislon) finds out that her real father is one Harley Wilkes, a Doctor in Blue Bells, Alabama, in the heart of Dixieland. Hart needs to spend a year South of the Mason-Dixon line before she can move on with her future career as a cardio-thoracic surgeon. The show is enjoyable, it really is !

Boardwalk Empire is of another calibre however; but then again, that’s Martin Scorcese for you (he direct the Pilot). The show is set in Atlantic City N.J.  during the 1920s, at the height of the Prohibition Era. A special effort has been made for the costumes, the music, the hardware… and I don’t think words are enough to describe all the back-room politics that take place in Atlantic City. Enoch ‘Nucky’ Thompson, city treasurer and the mastermind of a large-scale bootlegging scheme that doubles as an efficient political machine (E. Thompson fits in the American political vernacular of local “party boss”) running on buying off loyalties and other allegiances to, say, get the New Jersey delegates behind Warren Harding‘s nomination for GOP presidential candidate. Great stuff to watch, already two seasons have been aired so far.

Last series is Pan Am, I’m still watching the earlier episodes, but it sure has a je-ne-sais-quoi flavour of Mad Men: both are set in the late 1950s- early 1960s, and gender relations are depicted with a great deal of realism.

Picture of the Opening Meeting at Cinema Royal - Rabat

But enough with the glamour: PSU is holding its convention this weekend, between Bouznika and Rabat, and from what I have read and listened to, and for all the goodwill displayed and the hopes aroused, we are still far away from building a strong left coalition. Why so? Because party leadership – outgoing and even the likely new- still do not understand that shackling the party to Feb20 with so much enthusiasm and with little strategy, even to influence Feb20 and induce them to be more amenable to our goals, is not a strategy, it’s standing on the sideways of political history.

Don’t get me wrong: I think the party belongs with the Feb20 movement, but let us face it: left-wing political parties and radical Islamist AWI are all competing for influence -not control- of an otherwise very heterogeneous organization (although the term “organization” is a bit of a stretch) and I blame the movement for making PSU leadership going gaga over the youth; I really do.

Because of them, the decision to boycott elections and the referendum has been of no sizeable political benefit in terms of party membership or standing among the mainstream Moroccan citizens. And instead of going for the issues that matter, taxes, jobs, crime, standards of living, education and local government, I was horrified to listen to some of the speeches given during the opening meeting for the convention, and two words kept coming back: “Nidal” & “Somoud“.

Get over it, those we seek to enrol in our grand scheme for social justice and democratic institutions are not interested in militant mumbo-jumbo, they want clear and detailed answers to well-defined and real problems.The only thing I find solace in is the unheard of -in Morocco- transparency by which the party runs its internal elections: deliberations are open for independent observers, and party finances are there for everyone to see. No other party -save perhaps for PJD- can and does so. Occasions like these reassure me in my political choices.

I did not attend the rest of party conference for many reasons, among which some urgent projects I had to hand out on a tight schedule, the fact that I have not seen my family in months, and finally because my small, temperate, reasoned voice has no chance to be heard. I hope the newly elected leadership will heed the call of moderations in words – something that does not surrender the party’s nihilism, and does certainly not mean that they have sold out to Makhzen apparatus, because it is high time we left-wingers had crossed over to the Moroccan electorate to get them interested in our scheme, and left behind an obsolete body of language.