Moroccans debate educational standards for electoral candidates
2009-06-03
Days before Morocco's communal elections, voters and officials are asking whether aspiring local leaders should be required to meet educational standards before being allowed on the ballot.
By Siham Ali for Magharebia in Rabat – 03/06/09
 [Getty Images] Moroccan MPs - like their constituents – cannot agree on educational requirements to run in communal elections. |
As Morocco prepares to hold communal elections on June 12th, citizens are debating the issue of candidates' educational preparedness. Some people criticise the poor academic background of elected officials; others argue that a certificate is no guarantee of effective local governance.
The governor and director of elections at the interior ministry, Hassan Aghmari, commented at a press briefing on Monday (June 1st) that there had been a palpable improvement in educational levels among candidates. "58% have been educated to secondary level or higher, compared with 50% in 2008, which is an 8% improvement," he said.
These figures prove that new elites are now capable of meeting the challenges of communal management, said Aghmari.
During awareness-raising meetings, Interior Minister Chakib Benmoussa indicated on several occasions that these elections would be an opportunity "to reveal local skills capable of helping along the local development process".
Many people are unhappy that the communal charter only requires commune presidential candidates to have completed primary education.
Other candidates do not even need to satisfy this condition.
The communal charter amended in 2008 made no change to that particular point, despite MP demands. The interior ministry rejected an amendment requiring candidates to have a higher education degree.
"The management of local affairs is handed over to people whose level of education is very low, just at a time when public authorities are discussing the need to put the necessary skills in place to conduct successful reforms," said Mohamed Kanzidi, a lecturer in politics.
"There was a time we saw huge numbers of poorly-educated candidates standing for election. Things are certainly starting to improve. But there must be strict regulations brought in to bar the way to those who aren't up to the job, like they have in a number of countries."
Political parties also have a responsibility to field candidates who have sufficient skills and abilities to stand a chance of managing local affairs, Kanzidi added.
There are calls on all sides to tighten the screws on those committing fraud. In 2003, the Supreme Court issued a number of decrees resulting in the annulment of several communal council chairs' nominations for having falsified school certificates.
There are those who feel it unnecessary to spend much time looking at elected officials' educational backgrounds, given the general level of literacy in Morocco.
MP Mohamed Moubdii believes it is for the electorate to judge the candidates. He explained that it is not possible to write off a large part of the population at a time when Morocco has high levels of illiteracy.
Meanwhile, many members of the public and the young in particular, seem to have little interest in candidates whose educational achievement is low, feeling that they would be incapable of managing communal affairs sensibly.
"If they're going to succeed in office, an elected representative must have a qualification which will enable them to analyse situations and propose suitable solutions," said Manar Hammidouche, a student. "Anyone with a poor education cannot meet local needs."
Abdejelbbar Fahimi disagreed. "All that's needed is for them to have good advisors and to work closely with those around them to resolve problems. Many highly educated representatives only come back to the commune on the eve of the elections, and then you never see them again. What good are they then?"
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BEN Posted 2009-06-03
Instead of and in place of education standards, how about professional training toward community and prefecture management so that they know what is permitted and what is not? This would be preceded by an investigation into their morality. When our parliamentarians and other officials discuss a "understandable" bill, they spend hours upon hours in debate. Sometimes, though, when it is a "technical" bill, there is no discussion, they vote unanimously and have not understood anything. However, patriotism takes precedence over all else, of course.
اقريش رشيد Posted 2009-06-04
I think the issue is controversial academically and politically given that the main point in the issue is not just the educational level or other non educational, it is the ability of the individual to understand and grasp local authority. This means that local affairs should be one of the issues of his daily concerns and not a seasonal issue. This person should also understand the responsibilities of the commune. There are some people who have high standards in different fields such as medicine, engineering, legal counsel and other fields. However, when you talk to them about local affairs, they know nothing about them except if they belong to a party. But even in that last case, they are partisans under a political movement. This means they are passionate for the ideology alone. They don't adhere to the reforming, changing method or anything similar? They just try to reflect the political belief. Moreover, local affairs require that the individual be cultivated, understanding local affairs, a specialist in the field. Here we ask the most important question: what is the use of university officials if they don't benefit local communes? We also wonder why don't learned young people expert in local affairs enter political elections? Why do they remain far from politics? Why do they express regret about farce while it is their duty to make change and reform? This is what we require now. Oh young people, we are really sorry for this farce. However, if we remain in the shadow, our communes will not make progress. They will move backward. The defect lies in us not in communes as a body or facility. The most important thing is to cut the road for opportunist men and women regardless of their type and political affiliation. The most important thing is to give to the public facility its basic reality. We haven't run for the elections as candidates because the general environment is not healthy. This is not because of our weakness but because we hoped that young people would run on our behalf and in our favour. However, they have taken the side of money. Oh Moroccan young people, in your hands there is the good and the nation. If you want total reform, start by cleansing your country through your powers for all the good. You should know that if you stay in the back, you will not solve your problems which are intractable for the political elite. You should know that time is running up in the comprehensive reform. If you stay in the rear of the caravan, you are the cause. Go ahead faithfully.
أبوعمران Posted 2009-06-06
In reality local affairs are one of the issues which require an educational level. The local candidate should know the requirements of his commune in addition to experience in management which the candidate gained as an associative actor, through party coaching or training in this sector which will help him to assume responsibility as a representative who assumes concerns of his constituency, capable of argumentation to communicate the requirements of his commune to official canals local, national or international. But the most important thing is ability to activate everything which concerns the citizen in his constituency including development associations which will help him in human development. In such conditions, the challenge is to invest in human resources in all Moroccan regions to face the progress of globalization, focus on education, scientific training for our sons by opening partnerships with educational institutions with all its branches in order to develop its quality, benefit from the experiences of national or international organization towards which we will be committed and towards our voters with follow-up and accountability. We cannot achieve our goals for the interest of our local commune and our nation with representation of an ignorant candidate or with a low educational level as he cannot open a serious responsible dialog with the other and doesn't understand the concept of managing difference.
moroccan patriot Posted 2009-06-07
All of these local elections are really pathetic. They are ALL criminals of the first order. Voting for one criminal over another is a waste of time. Let us be very clear, these people running in these local elections are running to pad their wallets, not to help anyone, and certainly not because they are patriotic.
محمد العالي Posted 2009-09-25
You're discussing the low level of most presidents of communes. But you haven't mentioned that some of them falsified school certificates with the help of school directors or by their own initiatives using the scanner machines. All this is done with conspiracy of authority agents and members of the directorate of general affairs which is always aware of the educational level of candidates with its own means? However, although authority agents are aware of the issue of falsified certificates they accept them in the elections of the presidents of communes. They don't make any observations about this. In one of the remote rural communes in the province of Guelmim, when one of the advisors ask the Caïd (head of the local authority) to show to advisers the school certificate of the president to reassure them, the Caïd replied “you don't have the right to”. Because the Caïd knows that it is falsified by a director from Safi in 2003. For your information, the president who falsified the certificate is still president because falsification is permissible for the authority. Even if the current director of the school says the certificate is falsified and even if all those concerned in the province of Guelmim know about the scandal, they don't react.
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