Thousands Rally To Boycott Moroccan Elections

Thousands of people gathered throughout Morocco to urge a boycott of the forthcoming elections in demostrations called for by the February 20 movement. Many protesters claimed that the vote, scheduled for November 25, will not be truly democratic, and there were no reports of violence between security forces and protesters. Crowd estimates ranged from 2,000-5,000 in Casablanca, though a Reuters reporter in Tangier said about 10,000 protesters had gathered in a square in the Beni Mkada district.

Meanwhile, a member of the newly-formed Coalition for Democracy said, “Morocco will not follow other North African states in handing power to Islamists when it votes in an election this week because it has a mature democracy.”  The coalition is centered around secularist parties with links to the court of King Mohammed. ”Morocco is different. It is not Tunisia, nor is it Libya or Egypt,” Salaheddine Mezouar, Morocco’s Finance and Economy Minister who is also one of the leaders of the coalition, said in an interview. Saadeddine El Othmani, a leader of the Islamist Justive and Development Party (PJD), expressed that ”the PJD will be first, or second.”