Area: 458,730 sq km (177,117 sq mi) (Area and population figures refer to Morocco as constituted prior to the purported division of Western Sahara between Morocco and Mauritania and the subsequent Moroccan occupation of the Mauritanian zone in 1979.)
Population (1997 est.): 27,225,000
Chief of state: King Hassan II
Head of government: Prime Minister ˋAbd al-Latif Filali
For Morocco 1997 was a year of constitutional restructuring, alongside the ongoing restructuring of the economy. The constitutional changes approved by referendum in 1996 came into effect, with municipal elections in June and legislative elections for the new bicameral parliament in November. The municipal elections returned a 56% vote for the centre and right-wing parties, to the surprise of most observers, who had expected the left-of-centre Democratic Bloc (Koutla) to do better than its rivals. The Democratic Bloc won only 32% of the vote in a 75.13% turnout of eligible voters. The municipal elections were important for the legislative elections later in the year because the municipalities would choose 60% of the members of the new upper chamber, all of whom were to be indirectly elected, with the professional associations electing the remaining 40%.
As the legislative elections neared, the Democratic Bloc alliance broke up in late September. Consequently, a National Entente victory was anticipated, with the pro-government Constitutional Union and National Assembly of Independents playing key roles in the government that would emerge. This development also fed anxieties that unless the parties could demonstrate political maturity as they governed, popular support for the new constitutional arrangements--a critical part of the king’s vision for transition to a constitutional monarchy--would be fatally undermined. The elections, which were held on November 14 for the 325-seat House of Representatives, produced 102 seats for the Koutla, 100 for the right-wing National Entente (Wifaq) alliance, 97 for the centre parties, 9 for the Islamists, and 17 for the others. The voter turnout was 58.3%.
Morocco’s major diplomatic problem, the Western Sahara dispute, apparently moved closer to solution when the UN secretary-general, Kofi Annan, appointed a former U.S. secretary of state, James Baker, as his special envoy. After four meetings in which Morocco and the opposition Polisario Front met face-to-face, Baker announced in October that terms had been reached that would enable the long-delayed referendum for self-determination to be held in 1998. Morocco abandoned some of its demands for voter registration, and the Polisario Front made similar concessions over voting procedures.
In economic terms Morocco experienced modest growth after the outstanding recovery in 1996 as a result of the record grain harvest of 10 million metric tons. Growth was expected to be between 1% and 2.5%, compared with 11.8% in 1996; the harvest was estimated to total 3,350,000 metric tons. As a result, grain imports were expected to reach 2.5 million metric tons in 1997-98.
This article updates Morocco, history of.