Kiosk360. Most Moroccans believe that democratic practice and economic development can go hand in hand. This is the result of a survey whose conclusions are included in this press review from the daily Al Ahdath Al Maghribia.
Contrary to what has been widely overused, Moroccans want both democracy and economic development. They are also the only ones in the MENA region to firmly believe that economic performance is not necessarily synonymous with democratic decline. According to the daily Al Ahdath Al Maghribia which addresses this subject in its weekend issue of August 20 and 21. The idea that economic performance weakens within democratic regimes does not seem to convince Moroccans.
Indeed, underlines the daily, the latest edition of the “Arab Barometer” shows that only 43% of Moroccans polled believe in this idea. This is not the case in most of the countries covered by this survey. Thus, explains the daily in seven out of nine countries surveyed, more than half of respondents believe that economic performance is inversely proportional to democracy. In other words, a democratically developed country is necessarily economically weak.
This idea has a lot of followers in Iraq, for example, where 72% of respondents firmly believe in it. This is also the case in Tunisia where 70% of people polled believe that economic development and the democratic opening up of society do not go hand in hand. According to the daily which takes up the conclusions of this latest edition of the “Arab Barometer”, paradoxically these are the two countries which, in everyone’s opinion, have known “effective and efficient elections” during the last decade.
According to this survey, which reached nearly 23,000 citizens in nine countries in the MENA region, this idea is also widely accepted in other countries such as Palestine (63% of respondents) and Libya (61%). Along with Mauritania (42%), Morocco is one of the few countries in the region where the population firmly believes that democracy and economic development are inseparable.
By analyzing the data from this survey, the daily notes in both cases, the opinion expressed by the citizens of the first category like those of the second is shared on a large scale. In other words, when we believe in a country that democracy and economic development do not go in the same direction, it is because this opinion is shared by everyone, young and old, men and women and by different socio-professional categories. , by people with low incomes as well as by the more affluent social categories.
However, there is a slight difference by level of education in the two categories of countries. Thus, the most educated people tend to believe that democracy and economic development do not necessarily go together. This difference is more accentuated in the first category, in countries such as Libya or even Lebanon and Jordan. It is less significant in Morocco and Mauritania.
Having said that, qualify the daily newspaper, according to the conclusions of the barometer, whatever the country concerned, the citizens generally agree on the fact that democracy, on its own, does not solve all the economic and social problems their countries. The fact remains that it is the diet they prefer the most, by far.