King Mohammed vows elections will be transparent

Morocco's King Mohammed VI said in an interview with French daily Le Figaro that was published this Tuesday that the coming elections in Morocco shall be transparent.

"The coming poll will be transparent. It will reflect the Moroccan citizens' will," he said.

Asked whether the elections, scheduled for September 2002, will actually be the testing mark of change in Morocco, King Mohammed VI said "the elections are neither a test nor a sanction. Moroccans will not be going to the polls for the first time. If the coming polls raise more interest, it is just because they will be the first under my reign. In a democracy, elections are a normal process, and Morocco is a democracy."

"The coming poll will be transparent. It will reflect the Moroccan citizens' will. People perfectly know where Morocco is heading and where I want to head," he insisted.

Touching on freedom, the freedom of the press, the sovereign said for him freedom means the respect of the other and the respect of the law. "Freedom does not mean anarchy. Criticism is constructive, not denouncement." He noted that "Freedom of the press does not mean that anyone writes anything about anybody. You should write while respecting facts, even when these facts are less exciting than the phantasm of those who opt for criticism for the sake of criticism."

To a question on the Ben Barka case and the revelations published this summer on the disappearance of Mehdi Ben Barka, King Mohammed said that he does not know what happened but that he will contribute to anything likely to help the truth.

He insisted that he does not know what happened and that the main actors of the Ben Barka case have passed away but he deems that the memory of Ben Barka is treated in an unacceptable way.

"I deem that the memory of Ben Barka is treated in an unacceptable way. For the press and for some individuals, it has become commercial. This is an insult to his family," the sovereign said, adding he finds it "normal that Ben Barka's spouse and son (Bachir) want to know where the corpse of Ben Barka is. It will be inconvenient on my part to ask Bachir Ben Barka to forget and turn the page of the past. No, I will not do that. But time has perhaps come to consider this dossier from a different standpoint."

King Mohammed VI said as far as he was concerned, he was ready to "contribute to everything that might help the truth. But in the same way, I will oppose any recuperation or exploitation, be it mercantile or ideological, of this affair."