Analysis of the ecological commitments of political parties in Morocco / 2021 electoral campaign

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Today, the importance of ecological balance and ecosystem services no longer needs to be proven, given the multiple roles they play. It is only when we ensure the sustainability of this balance, and of our resources, that we can guarantee future generations the right to live in a healthy environment, as provided for in Resolution A/RES/45/94 of the United Nations General Assembly.

Since its creation, the Prometheus Institute for Democracy and Human Rights (IPDDH), has continued to believe in the correctness of the ecological question in its universal dimension, given the fundamental nature of the right to a clean, healthy environment. and sustainable.

And this, through a panoply of actions, programs and partnerships with national and international bodies and organizations, operating on issues relating to the ecological question, climate change and on questions of environmental rights in their entirety. Considered a prerequisite for the realization of other human rights, including the right to life, food, health and an adequate standard of living. The ecological question is at the heart of the statement related to the right to health cited in the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR).

In this sense, States are required to take concrete and progressive measures to develop, implement and maintain appropriate frameworks to combat climate change, starting with a formal commitment to climate action on the international scene but also by translating their promises into national legislation.

Subsequently, this placing on the agenda of the climate issue challenges public action, and questions the political management of climate issues. This is why first of all, we take stock of the commitments of Moroccan political parties in favor of the ecological question, by analyzing in this work the electoral programs drawn up and published during the Moroccan legislative elections of 2021.

Starting from the fact that the programs would be the expression of the political offer submitted to the arbitration of the voters. This work considers electoral programs exclusively as opus operatum, and therefore likely to be coded as objectively as possible. Aware that the priorities of public action are the result of a selection among competing issues and means of action, and that the 2021 elections take place in an economic context engulfed first by the health crisis, then by the international economic situation marked by rising prices, the issues of climate change would naturally impose themselves with great difficulty during this term of office. The question that then arises in this context is the following: would Moroccan policies sacrifice ecological issues on the altar of the need for post-crisis growth?

Thus, we propose in this work in a second time, a comparison of these commitments with those of the previous mandate. Under the prism of salience, this work will allow us to analyze the engagement and selection strategies that are reserved for the climate cause in electoral programs, especially in the context of an unprecedented health crisis experienced all over the world in 2020. .

From the difficulty of accommodating a discourse based on the defense of economic growth with the need to preserve the environment, to the criticisms that have appeared in the context of confinement putting down productivism and consumerism put on hold during this period, the evaluation of a fair and sustainable economic recovery on the basis of this analysis seemed essential to us. Finally, this work will also open up to other research issues related to the nature of the electorate (is it ecological or not) and to the trend of political ecology in Morocco, now that our country is reorienting its development model on the way to sustainable and resilient growth.

Executive Board Prometheus Institute for Democracy and Human Rights (IPDDH)