Qualitative analysis

accounting for 13 percent of the websites. The rest of the content was distributed via statements, which accounted for 6 percent.

Table 9: Comparison in terms of issues between the websites of Al-Adala Wat-Tanmiya and Al-Adl Wal-Ihsan

Political issues

Social issues

Economic issues

Religious issues

Subtotal

Al-Adala Wat-Tanmiya

138 45 17 11 211

Al-Adl Wal-Ihsan 132 48 37 25 242

2002. First, we take in mind the centrality of the parliamentary election in the Moroccan political field. Second, the analysis of the use of the Internet by Islam-oriented movements during this election helps understand their positions and attitudes to this topical issue during these years of democratic transition. Third, this election staged the first test for the concept of “new authority” advanced by the new monarch after his succession in 1999.

5.4.1.2.1.1 Al-Adala Wat-Tanmiya

Al-Adala Wat-Tanmiya party participated in the 2002 election for the second time.²¹¹ In this year’s legislative elections, the Al-Adala Wat-Tanmiya party made remarkable gains, by quadrupling the number of seats from 12 in 1997 to 44 in 2002, and thus became the third largest party in the parliament.

Al-Adala Wat-Tanmiya made active use of the Internet for campaigning during the official election period in 2002. Unlike most Moroccan political parties, the party established an electoral website. The website served as the central message source concerning the election information.

On July 20^th, 2002 the party posted a statement which announced that the Ministry of Interior had committed itself to make the September’s elections of 2002 free and fair²¹². The primary effect of this statement was to legitimize the party’s participation. The second effect was to attack implicitly other Islam-oriented organizations such as Al-Adl Wal-Ihsan, which called its members and sympathizers to boycott the election.

211 Political parties were promised that this election would be free and a fair election, beyond any regime’s manoeuvring.

212 http://www.pjd.ma/arabe/elec2002.asp.

Screen shot 14: Al-Adala Wat-Tanmiya election website

The election website, for example, posted about ten interviews given to national print press by senior members of the party.²¹³ The aim of these interviews was to reassure Moroccans and foreigners alike, to refute the campaign raised against the party and to convince Moroccans to vote for the party’s candidates. Abdelilah Benkirane, stressed this point in an interview given to a Moroccan magazine: “We seek a gradual role for us in parliament…not a landslide that would cause fears among the pro-Western elite”.²¹⁴ The interview was republished on the party website in September 2002.

The party website also featured information related to the elections campaign. It presented the party’s political statements as a counter campaign against the secular parties.

Yet the website of At-Tajdid played a leading role in this counter campaign. The website concentrated on a special aspect pertained to the election, which is of the “anti-islamist campaign” conducted by socialist parties and organizations in the secular and French-language press.

A first observation worth making is the way in which the party’s activities on the Internet attest to an increasing candidate-centeredness of campaigns. To encourage Moroccans to vote in the election, Al-Adala Wat-Tanmiya placed on the election website

213 The website published Saad Eddine El Othmani’s three interviews with As-Sabah, Al-Manara, Al Muqri Abu Zyad Al Idrissi’s interviews with Maghreb Press Agency, Abdallah Baha’s Interview with the election website and Rida Ben Khaldoun’s interview with the election website (http://www.pjd.ma/arabe/elec2002.asp).

214 http://www.pjd.ma/arabe/elec2002.asp,

its candidate lists in preparation for parliamentary elections. The prevalence of the interviews with senior leaders such as Mohamed Yatime, Abdelilah Benkirane, Ahmed Raissouni and Mustapha Ramid reflected a tendency of the party to focus on candidate rather than on the party as their campaigns gather momentum.

Screen shot 15: Al-Adala Wat-Tanmiya election website – candidates list

Features with documentary information that would help Moroccan educated citizens to cast ballots based on thoughtful consideration and comparison of the party’s program. They were posted ten weeks before the elections. The party website announced the publication of a report, assessing the legislative work of the party in the last parliament.

The report tackled topics such as “the moralisation of public life and resistance of any administrative misuse, the reform of the education system, the development of the women’s and children’s living conditions”.²¹⁵ Also included in this report were issues like

“the defense of human rights and freedom of expression, the support of and contribution to the economic and social development and the control of the government work, the reform of the elections laws, the support of Intifada and campaign against the normalization with the Zionist enemy and the effective of control of the Morocco’s foreign policy and the

215 http://www.pjd.ma/arabe/actualites.asp?type=7&id=58.

moralization of the parliamentary work”.²¹⁶ By publishing this report, the party aimed at canvassing public opinions and keeping Moroccan voters up to date on the latest news.²¹⁷

During the campaign for the election 2002, the website of At-Tajdid tackled a range of national and local policy areas, including corruption, mismanagement and misuse of public money. The website engaged itself in publishing corruption scandals that involved high senior executives in the bank sector.²¹⁸

By the time of the 2002 election, the party had developed the election website as the focal point of the party’s overall media strategy. During the 2002 election campaign period, the party updated regularly pages of the website with information on current events. The most growth occurred in the last week before the Election Day 2002. The tone of the communication content placed on the Al-Adala Wat-Tanmiya website was always moderate. Articles, interviews and statements were typically neutral in tone. However, the election website was essentially a partisan website. The party consciously avoided religious themes and images during the election campaign.

The Ministry of Interior had delayed the publication of the election results because of “many technical problems”. After being made officially known, the party immediately published the election results in the party website as well as in the election website.²¹⁹ But due to the delays casued by the “many technical problems”, the party gave a great amount of attention to the results of the election. On September 30^th, 2002, the party website published a statement issued from Abdel Kareem al-Khatib, the former president of the party, expressing his “deep thanks to the Moroccan public, who trusted the party and its candidates”.²²⁰ In the wake of the election result, the website of At-Tajdid posted a number of articles to comment the results and to highlight Islam-oriented movements’ electoral success.

One of the essential features of the Internet as a communication medium is its ability to offer website producers the chance to connect disparate pieces of information and content via the function of the link. The election website had taken advantage of the Internet’s unique capacities to “link” content from various sources into a dynamic arena of information exchange, by featuring links to election stories in the French media such as

216 http://www.pjd.ma/arabe/actualites.asp?type=7&id=46.

217 This report was designed to give a special orientation for the voters so that they can compare the work of other political parties.

218 Fur a detailed discussion of this point see the section in which we will deal with the economic issues.

219 http://www.pjd.ma/arabe/actualites.asp?type=4&id=38 and http://www.pjd.ma/arabe/elec2002.asp.

220 http://www.pjd.ma/arabe/events.asp.

references to the websites of Le Monde and Liberation, which widely and positively reported on the election results, particularly on Al-Adala Wat-Tanmiya success. These information links do provide further information material, but they do not reflect an intellectual or ideological alliance. This kind of links does not prove a relationship between the organization and its information links.

The smart use of the eailsy downloadable PDF-files rather than HTML-based pages demonstrate the organization holistic and strategic driven-approach that has characterized the communication work of the organistion. This will allow people with limited internet access to use the materials offline.

5.4.1.2.1.2 Al-Adl Wal-Ihsan

Unlike the website of Al-Adala Wat-Tanmiya’s, the politically oriented materials on the websites of Al-Adl Wal-Ihsan’s was highly critical of the regime and the established political institutions, including the parliamentary election. Al-Adl Wal-Ihsan demonstrated no willingness to participate in the parliamentary election 2002. As the organization website made clear, the organization refused direct involvement in the political process via the established political institutions, including the election.²²¹ During the election 2002, the website published a number of articles dealing directly with the event. The website posted, for instance, an interview translated from Spanish into Arabic by the American scholar John Entelis.²²² Entelis argued in this interview that Islam-oriented movements are peaceful organizations and that they have societal programs that may help solve Morocco’s problems. Significantly, the website titled the interview “Abdessalam Yassine: the sole alternative”. The website compared this comment with the regime’s monitoring and tracking of the “activities and non-activities of the organization”.²²³

221 http://www.aljamaa.info/ar/detail_khabar.asp?id=3166&IdRub=26.

222 The website drew this material from Demain, a Moroccan weekly.

223 http://www.aljama’a.org/majlisse_02112001.htm.

Screen shot 16: Al-Adl Wal-Ihsan: Al-Aqsa Intifada

During the parliamentary elections of 2002 a number of material was posted on the website of Al-Adl Wal-Ihsan to explain its position vis-à-vis the boycott and to play down the importance of the elections themselves. The major aim of the organization was to embarrass the regime by demonstrating its insincerity in implementing democracy. The organization hoped that its withdrawal would intensify public cynicism that in any case usually accompanied elections in Morocco. On the other hand, the organization pointed out that it was not against elections as a principle of organizing political life. It accepted participation in the democratic process if the regime changed the rules of the political game.

In May 2002, the website posted an essay written by Mohammad Manar, a leading intellectual of the organization. He argued that there were a number of political parties in Morocco, without political plurality. He criticized the multi-party system as divisive and un-Islamic. He asserted that when Al-Adl Wal-Ihsan’s would assume political power in the future, Moroccan political parties would have the right to articulate and express their political, social and economic points of view provided that they deterred from attacking Islam. The role of the leaders and the members of the organization would involve the denouncement of the parties’ plans and plots that serve the interests of these parties and not the ones of the community.²²⁴

224 http://www.aljama’a.org/daawa_wa_hiware/maali18042001.htm.

Screen shot 17: Risalat Al-Futuwa election website

The website also published an essay by Abdel Ali Majdoub on Abdessalam Yassine’s positions on democracy.²²⁵ The author listed some important passages from the leader’s numerous books without any comment. He then asked the visitors to read these texts and judge for themselves without the intervention of any kind of “mediators”. By mediators he means the weekly magazine Al-Sahifa Al-Usbuiya, which published in its 63^rd issue on April 26^th an essay, assessing “the democratic question in Abdessalam Yassine’s thought”.

In May 2002, the organization’s website posted another statement claiming that the regime carried out a “secretive study on behalf of the palace”.²²⁶ The main claim was that the regime worried about an eventual victory of an orientated party and that Islam-oriented movements might be gaining momentum in the country if the party would make a considerable gain in the 2002 elections. The report had also counseled the regime how it should deal with this eventual scenario.

To frame the post-election period, the organization website republished a number of essays already published in Moroccan dailies and weeklies. It republished e.g. on October 26^th, 2002 a long study under the title “makhzenization of modern political elites in

225 http://www.aljamaa.info/ar/detail_khabar.asp?id=3623&IdRub=3.

226 http://www.aljamaa.info/ar/detail_khabar.asp?id=3836&IdRub=14.

Morocco: the substance of the Makhzen and its mechanism” by Mohammed Shakir, earlier published in the weekly Al-Sahifa Al-Usbuiya.²²⁷ The core thesis of this study is that the Moroccan modern political elites had been co-opted by the regime. Instead of modernizing the traditional political structures on which the regime has founded its power and authority, the modern political elites were integrated into the traditional structures of the regime, a process the author labeled “makhzenization”.²²⁸

The website posted a number of articles that discussed an extraordinary range of issues omitted or misrepresented by the party press and the regime-related mass media such as election fraud and corruption. On October 8^th, 2002, the website placed an essay by Omar Iharshane, the secretary general of the Al-Adl Wal-Ihsan youth organization.²²⁹ Iharshane criticized the conditions under which these elections took place. According to his account, the elections had been in the past tarnished by fraud and vote buying. These elections were no exception, because it has never been in the regime’s interest to organize free and fair elections.

On October 11^th, 2002, the website posted another essay titled as “Driss Jettou as a prime minister: an unacceptable solution for an unacceptable situation” by Omar Iharshane.²³⁰ He ardently criticized the nomination of the prime minister and perceived it as an evident confirmation of the organization’s initial positions that “the existing political institutions, including the constitution and the parliament are not functioning”. They rather functioned as “façade institutions to legitimize the authoritarian structures of the political regime”. He also commented on the central role of the king in the Moroccan political system and in the constitution. The author also remarked that the abstinence from election by Moroccans could be regarded as a significant index of the general public mood. The low rate of 52 percent clearly indicates that Moroccan voters were in an increasing mood of apathy, or even alienation, from the traditional modes of political participation, the political process and the political party system. The author also remarked that the organization had anticipated the low turnout at the ballot-casting stations.

227 http://www.aljamaa.info/ar/detail_khabar.asp?id=3698&IdRub=14.

228 http://www.aljamaa.com/ar/archives.asp?Page=2&idRub=27.

229 http://www.aljamaa.info/ar/detail_khabar.asp?id=3818&IdRub=16.

230 http://www.aljamaa.com/ar/dossier20053/index2.html.

5.4.1.2.1.3 Conclusion

Our analysis shows that Islam-oriented movements during the 2002 election have tapped the potential of the Internet to stimulate political action through their websites. Until recently, Islam-oriented movements had no role to play in the Moroccan electoral politics.

Through use of the Internet, Islam-oriented movements have expanded opportunities for the Moroccan public to have easier access to the specific information and knowledge regarding elections. Now, through the Internet, unlimited access to substantive information including top-notch research papers in politics could be retrieved at the command of one’s fingertips from Islam-oriented websites.

Islam-oriented movements framed the election of 2002 issue in a way that went initially against the grain of the secular political parties and secular-associative groups.

Since Islam-oriented movements often claim that they do not receive coverage in the media, or that their message is distored by news editors and journalist, via the Internet, they become their own news producers and deliver their organizations’ messages unmediated to Moroccan voters, thereby bypassing the traditional media. In the case of Al-Adl Wal-Ihsan, the Internet offered them the possibility to directly communicate with their power bases. Abdusamad Fathi, editor of the weekly Risalat Al-Futuwa, said:

“We use the Internet to inform people of what is happening to our organization. Without the Internet, we would otherwise have had no means of providing thousands of Moroccans with our firsthand accounts. We also want to counter the government’s misinformation by providing objective, reliable and credible information and analysis of the conflict”.²³¹

The original message on the elections and democratization could be reached by a number of Internet surfers. Thus, the traditional problem of distortion, so common when communication content spread by the anti-Islam oriented media channels is likely to disappear by the skilful deployment of the Internet-based and mediated communication by Islam-oriented movements. The use of the Internet in the parliamentary election in 2002 allowed the marginalized voices of Al-Adl Wal-Ihsan to be heard, particularly their call to boycott the election. We can not establish a link between the boycott campaign of Al-Adl Wal-Ihsan’s website and the low and moderate turnout on the ballots, especially among

231 Fathi; personal interview.

young people. But we can conclude for sure that for the first time in Morocco, Moroccans could read the “views and arguments” on democracy, political parties and election directly from Al-Adl Wal-Ihsan’s online sources of information.

The Internet as a new tool for campaigning in elections has been used by the two organizations. It has been made clear that the use of the Internet during the election 2002 became visible. Al-Adl Wal-Ihsan has identified the potential of the Internet by campaigning and has exploited it. The Internet has thereby functioned to increase the availability of political resources so that the most motivated, informed and interested in Moroccan politics may draw, download and distribute these materials.

The analysis of the election website and the website of the parliamentary confirmed Norris’s comment that the Internet’s use in election campaign serve in the first place to reach the converted (Norris, 2002; 2003). True, the influence of the Internet in increasing the likelihood to vote, in contrast to the US and Europe, is very small. The Internet had no direct impact on the ballot. But it seems that this strategic and innovative approach to the election 2002 in Morocco provide new resources and new pathways of influence for Islam-oriented movements.

One might correctly say that the external importance of electronic media for Islam-oriented movements comprises potential for coordination, increased media relations, desktop publishing and the more efficient conduct of electoral campaigns. Their websites have direct links to relevant pieces of information. As the case of Al-Adala Wat-Tanmiya demonstrated, the party has used the election website primarily as an information vehicle to provide voters with extensive policy information. The election website has acted as a virtual library for documents, manifestos, press releases, information contacts. The election website was also a useful resource for journalists, researchers and students. “Via the Internet, we can say that we take control of the organization’s agenda” said one official senior official.

Islam-oriented movements brought their politicized interpretations of events, or frames into alignment with potential recruits’ pre-existing frames. Through the Internet, the parliamentarian has been given the ability to direct his messages with greater precision to specific targeted individuals and groups. The website gives him the possibility to personalize his campaigning appealing to a limited and self-selecting audience. According to Rachid Medouar:

Im Dokument The Internet and Politics in Morocco : The political Use of the Internet by Islam-oriented political movements (Seite 185-200)