[EVENT] Anti-Japan Demonstrations and Elections Postponed

[u/TheIpleJonesion]

May 1st, 1972

Rabat, Morocco

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In light of the Japanese-Spanish Agreement regarding the colonial province of the Spanish Sahara, and the subsequent Moroccan (and broader) diplomatic protest, a small group of Moroccans and Sahrawi students protested outside of the Japanese embassy in Rabat, demanding Japan halt its investment and calling for an end to Spanish colonialism. While the protest was not large, it undoubtedly could not have been sanctioned without the approval, tacit or otherwise, of the Moroccan security apparatus, which perhaps sees the Spanish Sahara issue as a mobilizing force to counteract disquiet with the regime. Officially, the government did not comment on the protest.

King Hassan II has announced, after consultation with Prime Minister Mohammed Karim Lamrani and Interior Minister Mohammaed Oufkir, that the first elections to be held under the 1972 constitution, ratified in a referendum two months earlier, and which were previously scheduled to be held in May of 1972, have been indefinitely postponed owing the domestic security situation, as well as the pressures of the upcoming Organization of African Unity summit in Rabat in June. Nonetheless, elections will, at some point in the future, be held, and will be sure to cement the beloved and unique position of Hassan II in the eyes of the Moroccan people.