For a moment, King Mohammed VI bent over a hospital bed and kissed the forehead of a boy injured in a powerful earthquake in Morocco’s High Atlas region. Next, he took off his gray plaid blazer, rolled up his shirt sleeves, and headed to the Marrakech University Hospital, named after the king, to donate blood.
The images, broadcast on state television, were part of a carefully planned visit by the North African country’s ruler to the historic city on Tuesday, three days after a 6.8-magnitude earthquake hit Marrakech and remote mountain villages.
The intended message was clear: after more than 2,900 people were killed, the king took power and expressed full solidarity with his people. But the visit – his first public appearance since the disaster – took place without public comment, let alone a rousing speech to unite the crowd and reassure thousands of people affected by the country’s worst earthquake Moroccans who lost their homes and relatives. More than 60 years.
This is very much in keeping with the style of the king who has ruled Morocco for nearly a quarter of a century – a conservative, retired monarch who rarely gives impromptu public speeches and avoids events such as Arab summits. However, his role in the kingdom is crucial, especially in times of national crisis: according to the Moroccan constitution, the king exercises near-absolute power and is the final decision-maker on economic and political matters.
That explains his conspicuous absence at the time of the earthquake – reports suggested he was in France – reigniting complaints among some Moroccans about the time King Mohammed has spent abroad in recent years. “We do see the cost of absenteeism during earthquakes,” said Intissar Fakir, a Morocco analyst at the Middle East Institute in Washington. “When you have such a top-heavy structure, all the decisions, all the initiative, is in one hand. Either that person is absent, or slow to act, or worried about their performance, or at least letting people down.”
The quake struck just after 11pm on Friday, and state television on Saturday showed the king presiding over an emergency cabinet meeting and instructing the military and other government agencies to respond to the quake. But there was no address to the nation. “It’s his own style,” says one loyalist. “He was a man of action, not a man of words.”
However, this is not the first time the king’s absence has sparked controversy: Rumors have spread about his friendship with martial arts fighter Abu Bakr al-Azaitar and his two brothers, Moroccan immigrants who were born in Germany. Even the silenced national media has raised questions about their role in the royal family, suggesting those in power fear the brothers’ influence when they visit the king’s palace and accompany him on trips abroad.
The 60-year-old monarch has appeared to take a more active role at home in recent months, launching projects and appearing regularly on national television. One Western analyst said the king is now using the earthquake to show Moroccans “that he has resumed business, everything is under control and the machine is running”. “But there is controversy – people say the king is not here and the emergency response mechanism is not functioning as well as it should. Now I would say . . . the media machine behind the king is probably louder than the arguments.”
After King Mohammed ascended the throne in 1999 at the age of 35, he quickly sought to project a different image of his late father, Hassan II. Hassan II was a flamboyant, high-profile Arab politician who ruthlessly suppressed opponents and survived two assassination attempts.
The young king, who earned a degree in international law in France and served as an intern to then-European Commission president Jacques Delors, can be seen driving his own car around Rabat. He portrayed himself as a gentle, hands-on monarch and was often photographed kissing disabled children. One of his first journeys as king was to the rebellious mountains of the northern Rif, which had long been neglected by his father.
Morocco has been one of the more stable Arab countries for 24 years. Its economy tripled in size last year to $134 billion as the government invested heavily in infrastructure. King Mohammed has also firmly pushed Morocco’s claim to the disputed territory of Western Sahara, putting it at the center of his foreign policy.
When popular uprisings rocked the Arab world in 2011, he responded to the unrest by allowing protesters to take to the streets and enacting some reforms, including granting more power to Morocco’s weak parliament. However, the monarchy’s control over politics has tightened in recent years and many independent journalists have been imprisoned.
However, analysts say the king is seen as more interested in business than politics and relies heavily on the “makhzen” – an opaque network of courtiers and royal advisers – to manage state affairs. The king is a major shareholder in al-Mada, a powerful investment holding company that owns stakes in many of Morocco’s largest companies and has operations across Africa.
In 2015, Forbes magazine ranked the king as Africa’s fifth-richest billionaire, with an estimated net worth of $5.7 billion. (The magazine no longer includes him in its rankings.) Few expected the earthquake would cause the king to change his calculated, publicity-shy style. “This is a monarchy that wants to maintain its mystique, but also wants to present itself as modern and accountable to its people,” Fakir said. “Sometimes the two aspects don’t appear together, and we saw some during earthquakes. It’s difficult to present the two aspects consistently.”
andrew.england@ft.com
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