When it comes to the relationship between the Amazigh cause and elections, the most clear-eyed position is one of neutrality — watching the political landscape unfold without placing any faith in party promises. The Amazigh dossier is simply too large for any party to carry.
This stance of neutrality and observation is not a call to boycott, nor an invitation to vote for one side or abstain. It is, rather, a refusal to treat the Amazigh cause as an electoral stake in Morocco — a refusal to believe party pledges made in its name or to let such pledges determine whether to participate, abstain, or favor one party over another.
A critical review of past electoral cycles tells a clear story. Since the 2011 Constitution enshrined Amazigh as an official language, since the two organic laws implementing that status were enacted, since the National Council for Languages and Moroccan Culture was established, and since successive governments — from Benkirane through El Othmani and Akhannouch — have managed (and mismanaged) these files across different domains of public life, one conclusion stands out: advancing the Amazigh cause and giving real effect to its constitutional and legal provisions is a matter of major public policy. It falls outside the scope of party management, and even beyond governmental reach. It belongs to a higher tier of state decision-making.
For this reason, the components of the Amazigh movement — its organizations and activists — should not look to political parties, with their internal conflicts and shifting alliances, to resolve the outstanding issues or guarantee full implementation of the Constitution and the law. Nor should they rely on any individual activist, parliamentarian, broker, or party member driven primarily by personal ambition to settle the Amazigh question or ensure its legislative application. Nor on a local council member overwhelmed by his own difficulties to deliver solutions for the Amazigh cause. Nor even on a party secretary-general or president — absorbed by organizational and personal priorities — to make binding commitments or embed concrete Amazigh measures in a party platform.
Following the battles over candidacies, the summer-time reshuffling of elites between parties, the migrations of notables from one political tent to another in this or that region: these are concerns that do nothing for the Amazigh cause. When the moment comes to apply constitutional and legal provisions and define the necessary public policies, all these actors will comply — sometimes without even understanding the rationale, the substance, or the goals behind them.
The dossier is bigger than all of them. They are all bound to implement the Constitution, the laws, and the programs, and to provide the necessary resources — if they hold office and if these choices are embedded in the state’s overarching political priorities — from the smallest rural council to the country’s highest institution.
The Amazigh movement’s components have already engaged with many previous elections in different ways: boycott, candidacy or membership in certain parties, conditional support, indifference. Rather than once again playing the familiar role of animating the electoral scene, the realities of political life, the management of elections, the lessons of past experience, and the track record of previous forms of engagement all point this time toward a different path: neutrality, observation, and follow-up — without betting politically on electoral outcomes to resolve the Amazigh question and the constitutional and legal imperatives attached to it.
Political parties make no clear promises on women’s rights, freedoms, or democracy — except for quiet ideological positioning. They make none on religious governance and the command of the faithful. None on foreign policy, the Sahara, or regional and international affairs. How then could they make commitments on identity, language, and culture — on the Amazigh cause in particular — when this domain, like the others, falls under the state’s sovereign authority, its strategic choices, and its constitutional framework? It is the state that bears the responsibility for implementation and management.
By Rachid El Hahi
Arabic version | French version
