Report on Media in Morocco - Arab Center for the Rule of Law and ...

was not possible to imagine that party-based press would go to the furthest extents in
verifying the credibility of the electoral process. The proof of which is that they
ignored the most controversial aspects in those elections, such as the delay in
announcing the results and the non-publishing of detailed results in the official
gazette 128 .
It is a paradox that the newspapers of the "new" opposition have also followed the
same behavior. Though most of the suspicions regarding those elections were related
to possible interference in the results to hinder the Justice and Development Party, its
press, even if it mentioned some of the violations, avoided search and investigation in
the events occurring during that period.
3- Independent Press and Weak Potentials
Independent press might be the turning point in the relation of media with the
elections in Morocco, as it managed to convey the presence of developed media
patterns in covering elections through discussing the programs of political parties,
presenting a socio-professional image about candidates, and unveiling some notorious
electoral practices. Thus, they replaced parties in discussing their programs and
shifting discussion from the public media and from within party conglomerations to
their pages. Their situation enabling them to be freer in covering elections and
disclosing their hidden aspects had helped them in this fact.
It was noticeable that the newspapers' coverage of the elections is that it was not up to
the required level and could not make up for the role played by the press of the former
opposition during the elections. In general, this press was free in covering all
occurring events, in conveying the different violations that took place, reflecting the
different opinions, looking after the aspects related to the ballot, criticizing the nature
of the way with which public media deals with this event, and even questioning the
integrity of elections, as most of the articles, editorials and analyses in those
newspapers revealed. However, they failed to cover the elections accurately.
Few are the reports that were conducted on the violations 129 in some constituencies.
Furthermore, the investigations on the doubts cast on the elections results were not
completed except one year after the ballot 130 . This is due to reasons, some of which
are related to the margin of freedom even in part of the independent press, either
because it avoids everything that could bother the State 131 or some parties 132 . Others
are related to the weak potentials in many of these newspapers. For instance, some
weekly newspapers, not having more than 7 or 8 journalists, are not expected to
128 The 2002 parliamentary elections remained an exception in the Moroccan electoral life, as they are
the only elections of which the detailed results have not been published in the official gazette, which
raises more than one question mark on their credibility.
129 Among the reports conducted in this regard was the one by the weekly "al-Ayyam" on the event
occurring in Azilal, where a worker at this province was convoked to the central administration of the
Ministry of Interior. This is in addition to the report conducted by the weekly "al-Saheefa" in the city
of Sala when a candidate from the Independence Party, Khaled Fathi, challenged the result that was for
the benefit of the candidate of the Socialist Federation Party, al-Siddiq al-Zanbeer.
130 The report conducted by "Le Journal Hebdomadaire" and "Tel Qu'il".
131 Such as "al-Sabah", "La Vie Economique" and "Maroc Hebdomadaire."
132 Some of these newspapers were founded by members of these parties and even leaders at these
parties. Hence, it could not be perceived that these newspapers might unveil any defects in elections
that might harm those parties.