Campaign Season

The singing, drumming and clapping floats down to us through the courtyard. This isn't the singing we're accustomed to hearing. On Monday and Thursday evenings, we get two hours of chanting (recitations from the Koran) from the mosque next door. The voices are predonimantly male. Beautiful and soft, they emerge from behind closed doors. In the mornings, we often hear a chorus of small children's voices coming from the adjacent Koranic school. We imagine that it's an arabic counterpart to the ABCs song. But for the past few mornings, there's been periodic singing in the neighborhood, of the sort we occasionaly hear in the evening as we walk past a wedding feast. I venture outside and find a local political rally in progress. This one dominated by women and children.





We're in the midst of campaign season in Morocco. While the same is true in the US, the election there isn't for another 14 months. In Morocco, laws restrict campaigning to the two weeks prior to an election. This is a major election for the lower house of parliament, and it does have people on edge; it's expected that the Islamist party will dominate the election and send progressive politicians packing. The government has made moves to counter that, including one taken from the American electoral playbook: gerrymandering. Earlier this summer, the government redrew the district lines to dilute the concentration of Islamist supporters. Of course, Morocco has another political tool not available in the US: it's a monarchy. And not a European Monarchy with a ceremonial King, but a red-blooded one that wields power. It's quite likely that the Islamists will win the election; if that happens, it will be interesting to see how the King responds.

Numbered election boxes are drawn on walls throughout Morocco, and campaign posters are officially limited to these spaces. Many campaigns have iconic stencils that they spray paint on walls throughout the city - a set of scales, and on another, a rearing black stallion, whose promise is less obvious - but others clearly lack any real organization and we're surprised by how many of the boxes remain empty wherever we go.

This singing rally I've stumbled upon is interesting in that is nearly all women and children, and I remember reading that thirty seats are reserved for female politicians. Further, the sight of my camera, usually cause for modest retreat, is today greeted with smiles, drumbeats and campaign fliers.

Right now, there's a lot of excitement. On September 7th, we'll know the results.