His February 2011 speech offering political reforms was not just a rushed response to the threat of a major 'Arab Spring' uprising – much of its content offering political parties a bigger role in a constitution that emphasised an enhanced separation of powers had been compiled much earlier in his reign by a young king anxious to break with the repressive rule his father Hassan II (AC Vol 52 No 11 Can the King stop the spring...
The 1958 revolt which M6's father King Hassan II then Crown Prince brutally suppressed is not forgotten...
He is investing much cash and personal credit in a campaign to return to the African Union which his father Hassan II left after the Polisario Front's Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic joined in 1982 (AC Vol 58 No 1 Cold and hot wars)...
The days when the late King Hassan II's Interior Minister Driss Basri imprisoned opponents and swung elections are long past...
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 against each other to stop them from taking him for granted...
M6's father the late King Hassan II incorporated Salafist ideas into his reworking of Al Amir al Mouminin's role as he clung to power in the 1970s-80s...
He played a major role in the expansion of military relations with the USA between 2005 and 2010 which followed a period of less cordial ties after the death of King Hassan II in July 1999 and the difficult early years of Mohammed's reign...
Early in his reign he instituted a truth and reconciliation commission the Commission de vérité et de réconciliation to help reconcile people to the abuses committed on his father Hassan II's watch...
Bouteflika was Foreign Affairs Minister throughout the late Houari Boumedienne's presidency (1965-79) the period when Polisario was created and the late Moroccan King Hassan II responded with the Green March in 1975 to reclaim the territory for the kingdom after General Francisco Franco's death...
Three years into the new constitution King Mohammed VI (aka ‘M6') lacks the direct control over day-to-day politics and the economy that his father the late King Hassan II exerted...
