King Mohammed VI prepared many years for this moment. Like his father who received a law degree from University of Bordeaux, he started out as a law student. To familiarize himself with the European Union and the United Nations, the future king traveled to Brussels to work as an intern under EU President Jacques Delors. He then returned to France to complete his law degree at the University of Nice, where he defended a dissertation on EU-Maghreb relations.

“He will focus on democratization and modernization,” affirms longtime friend and spokesman Hassan Aourid. Avoiding the dread langue de bois, or pure doctrine, for which Morocco is known, Mohammed VI has already shown commitment to these ideals through action. On September 30, he allowed Jewish Moroccan Abraham Serfaty, political exile expelled eight years ago for supporting self-determination in the Western Sahara, back into Morocco. “This is very important,” says Moroccan sociologist Fatema Mernissi. “Serfaty is like us. He is a symbol of all minorities.” Two weeks later the new king permitted the return from France of the family of Mehdi Ben Barka, an opposition leader abducted and presumed killed in Paris in 1965.

And as a gesture toward keeping the makhzen, or traditional administrative power, in check, on November 9 Mohammed VI fired former Minister of Interior Driss Basri. Loyal ally of Hassan II, Basri had been responsible for sending political opponents to jail and maintaining police force in Western Sahara. Basri was seen as a vestige of the abuse of power in Morocco´s government. Directly upon the firing, one European commentator remarked, “Foreign investors now seem to clearly see Morocco´s formal entry into a new era of democratic and economic reforms.”

Last month, King Mohammed VI visited the poverty-stricken Rif region in the north, near Spain, promoting new programs of infrastructure improvements, such as better roads.

Experts say, however, that it´s not the king that presents a problem, it´s the system he represents. “It´s going to take some bold actions” to change the system, cautions Jamai. But, according to one Moroccan official, the king and Prime Minister Youssoufi, with whom he will work closely, are “on the same wavelength. They want the same things: a modern Morocco, reform, a more just society, to fight against corruption and for civil rights...and to let a little air enter in.”

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