Vol 58 No 7 | MOROCCO Bye bye Benkirane 31st March 2017 With the Prime Minister now out of government, the Palace has won an important round in its battle with the Islamists For now, King Mohammed VI's much anticipated move to replace Abdelilah Benkirane as Prime Minister seems to have ended a deep political crisis that lasted nearly six months. During...
Vol 58 No 6 | MOROCCOWESTERN SAHARA Standoff in the Sahara 17th March 2017 Moroccan forces have withdrawn behind their defensive wall at Guerguerat in Western Sahara after months of rising tension on the disputed territory's southern border with Mauritani...
Vol 58 No 4 | MOROCCO Don't read the fine print 17th February 2017 Morocco's re-admission to the African Union leaves unresolved a major contradiction between the Kingdom's constitution and that of the AU, to which Morocco is now a signatory since...
Vol 58 No 2 | MOROCCO Benkirane's 'bras de fer' 20th January 2017 The clash between the Palace and the Islamist PJD will shape politics as much as the kingdom's efforts to rejoin the AU The struggle over who will join Morocco's next coalition government has continued into the new year and could continue for some time yet. The coalition is again to be led by the 'm...
Vol 57 No 22 | MOROCCO How to win friends 4th November 2016 Reports of fresh clashes in Western Sahara suggest an urgency in Rabat's bid to rejoin the African Union On a swing through Rwanda and Tanzania late last month, King Mohammed VI used the trip to promote his main causes: getting back into the African Union and outflanking the Western S...
Vol 57 No 21 | MOROCCO Premier Benkirane is back 21st October 2016 The Islamist PJD won the most votes in this month's elections but it faces some hard bargaining to form another coalition It should have been a dramatic general election on 7 October, pitting the Islamist-led government's record of social conservatism and economic stagnation against a Westernised libe...
Vol 57 No 8 | MOROCCOWESTERN SAHARA Rabat's Cold War manoeuvre 15th April 2016 The kingdom is desperate to roll back a series of diplomatic setbacks over the Western Sahara and has the UN in its sights Last month's visit to Moscow by King Mohammed VI had echoes of the political manoeuvres favoured by his late father, King Hassan II, who liked to play both sides in the Cold War ag...
Vol 56 No 10 | MOROCCO Outward bound 15th May 2015 Morocco has been busy buying influence in Washington, extending it in Francophone Africa and tightening its grip on Western Sahara Officials and business leaders are celebrating their successful but costly campaign to outflank regional rival Algeria in the long dispute over Western Sahara. Morocco has also bes...
Vol 56 No 10 | MOROCCO Sufism’s soft power 15th May 2015 The monarch uses the country’s long Sufi tradition to help its foreign policy and neutralise its enemies The effort by King Mohammed VI to extend Moroccan influence in West Africa depends in part on the country's historic Sufi ties with turuq (brotherhoods or orders) across the region...
Vol 56 No 6 | MOROCCO Concern for King and court 13th March 2015 Plunging oil prices and rapprochement with France make for good news, but there are stirrings behind the headlines After a period of personal trauma following the death in December of his friend and right-hand man, Minister of State Abdellah Baha, Prime Minister Abdelilah Benkirane's face is br...
