Moroccan Scholar Mohamed El Battiui: The Royal Institution is the Spearhead of the Makhzen’s Corrupt System

Moroccan Scholar Mohamed El Battiui: The Royal Institution is the Spearhead of the Makhzen’s Corrupt System

✍️ BY: Dr. Hana Saada

Algiers, Algeria |  In a searing intervention on the program “Week in Review” hosted by exiled journalist Dounia Filali, Moroccan political analyst and academic Dr. Mohamed El Battiui delivered a blistering critique of Morocco’s ruling establishment, declaring the royal institution itself to be “the spearhead of the Makhzen’s vast and entrenched corruption.”

The discussion came against the backdrop of explosive revelations published by the hacker collective known as Jabarout, which in recent weeks has leaked confidential documents exposing widespread money laundering, illicit property acquisitions, and unexplained fortunes amassed by high-ranking officials. Among the most recent leaks was evidence of a senior intelligence officer purchasing an entire industrial zone with sums far exceeding his modest state salary — a scandal mirroring earlier controversies involving Justice Minister Abdellatif Ouahbi and other regime figures.

Filali expressed astonishment at the glaring inaction of Morocco’s judiciary, which has remained conspicuously silent in the face of overwhelming evidence of corruption. Equally troubling, she noted, is the normalization of such practices by Moroccan society at large, where systemic abuses are tolerated as if they were ordinary affairs.

Dr. El Battiui dismissed the latest scandals as “a storm in a teacup” compared to the deeper rot afflicting the Moroccan state. He asserted that the Makhzen is built upon four pillars: torture of political prisoners, harassment, manipulation, and institutionalized corruption. “This is not a deviation,” he warned, “but the very DNA of a state designed to repress, exploit, and silence its own people.”

He pointed to historical continuity, recalling how King Hassan II transformed the military into a class of profiteering businessmen after the failed coups of 1971 and 1972. According to testimonies such as those found in “Les Officiers de Sa Majesté” by retired officer Mahjoub Tobji, the monarchy openly encouraged officers to abandon politics and enrich themselves through shady business, under threat of severe reprisals. “From Hassan II to Mohammed VI,” El Battiui argued, “the monarchy has cultivated corruption not as an accident, but as a deliberate system of governance.”

Citing shocking figures, El Battiui highlighted the lavish lifestyle of Mohammed VI, who purchased a luxury mansion steps away from the Eiffel Tower for €80 million — later amounting to €110 million including administrative costs — at a time when Moroccan citizens were grappling with poverty and despair during the COVID-19 crisis. “How,” he asked, “was such a colossal sum transferred abroad without the oversight of Morocco’s currency exchange office?”

El Battiui further underscored the monarchy’s entanglement in global financial scandals, from the Panama Papers to the Pandora Papers, in which members of the royal family and close associates, including the king’s confidant Mounir Majidi, were directly implicated.

Concluding his intervention, El Battiui affirmed that the rot of the Makhzen cannot be separated from the monarchy itself: “The Moroccan state is not merely plagued by corruption — it is corruption incarnate. The royal institution is not the victim of the system; it is its architect, its guardian, and its profiteer.”

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