Sep 17, 6:01 AM
Grand Promises, Empty Pockets: Morocco’s Structural Illusions
As political parties vie for parliament on grandiose job targets, the real test lies in liberalising an economy stifled by central planning.
Morocco’s political class is once again performing its pre-electoral ritual. With the campaign launched on September 10 for the upcoming legislative vote on September 23, 27 political parties are parading through Rabat, vying for 395 seats in the House of Representatives. On paper, 15.8 million registered voters hold the key to the next cabinet. In practice, the exercise increasingly resembles a shadow-boxing match where the political apparatus promises prosperity while market realities deliver stagnation for the young.
The central paradox of contemporary Morocco is written in macroeconomic figures. The International Monetary Fund projects real GDP growth of 4.4 percent for 2026, building on nearly five percent the previous year. Yet, this macro-level success fails to translate into micro-level dynamism. Youth unemployment hovers at a staggering 37.3 percent, with a quarter of young citizens neither in work, education, nor training. When top-down infrastructure projects fail to generate organic private-sector opportunities, growth figures remain little more than statistical vanity.
Faced with deep voter skepticism—where barely a third of young people express confidence in political institutions—the major parties have predictably defaulted to classical statism. The ruling National Rally of Independents promises the creation of one million jobs alongside a minimum wage hike to 5,000 dirhams. Its coalition partner, the Authenticity and Modernity Party, matches the one-million-job pledge with a price tag of 350 billion dirhams. Meanwhile, the opposition Justice and Development Party, attempting to recover from its 2021 collapse under Abdelilah Benkirane, offers nearly five hundred programmatic measures.
Such promises treat wealth creation as an administrative decree rather than the product of competitive enterprise. Dictating minimum wages and engineering public spending does nothing to resolve the skills mismatches, regulatory friction, and labor market rigidities holding back private investment. When formal channels offer so little, citizens make rational choices outside the ballot box: only four percent of registered voters are under 25, while thousands choose to vote with their feet, as demonstrated by the mass migration surge into Ceuta late last July.
Morocco's constitutional architecture under Article 47 ensures the monarch appoints the premier from the leading party, providing an essential anchor for institutional stability. But political stability without microeconomic reform merely defers systemic tension. Until Rabat moves past bureaucratic patronage and state-directed quotas toward genuine economic liberalisation, election campaigns will remain elaborate showcases for promises no government can deliver.
Written by Martina Kirchner martina.kirchner@alpineweekly.com
