For more than six decades, Morocco stood as a fortress of pluralism in a region where authoritarianism was the rule, not the exception. While Spain endured Franco, Portugal suffered under Salazar, and Algeria drowned in military regimes, Morocco chose a different path: the bumpy, imperfect, but undeniable road of political competition, multipartism, and citizen participation.
Today, this legacy is under fire. Among the long and sometimes contradictory list of Gen Z demands lies something unprecedented, and profoundly dangerous: the dissolution of political parties, even the staging of public trials against them.
It is not just a political whim. It is an attempt to erase a national memory. To discard, in a moment of rage, the patient march of rights and responsibilities carried by generations who fought, voted, protested, and negotiated for a more open Morocco. And for what? For the chaos of the street? For the emptiness of leaderless platforms and faceless “rooms” on foreign servers?
Yes, the youth of today have tools their parents never dreamed of. Technology has accelerated expression, amplified discontent, and given them new channels for mobilization.
But technology is not politics. Podcasts might win votes in America; viral videos might spark movements. Yet, at the end of the day, societies return to institutions, to candidates, to programs, to the imperfect but necessary mediations of political parties.
Destroy those institutions, and what is left? A void. A vacuum filled by noise, not vision. Unknown demands shouted on unknown platforms, yielding unknown results. And once unleashed, this void cannot be easily contained it devours stability and trust.
Morocco’s Gen Z deserves to be heard. They must be engaged. But to participate is not to eradicate.
Their role is to build upon the democratic foundations laid since independence, not to bury them.
To its credit, the government has extended its hand. Dialogue is on the table. The question is: will the young generation take it? Will they seize the chance to shape the system from within, or will they gamble with Morocco’s hard-won legacy by rejecting a democratically elected government altogether?
The stakes are high. Ignore the institutions, and Morocco risks losing what made it unique in this region: its refusal to submit to the temptations of authoritarian shortcuts.
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