The King of Morocco, Mohamed VI, 59, is very ill, as the latest images released by the media show. The presence of the Alaouite monarch at a recent ceremony for the presentation of a one hundred percent Moroccan vehicle already highlighted it. Some subsequent image has ratified what the press – Spanish and African – had been announcing for a long time, according to post ABC .
Mohamed VI, extremely thin and unrecognizable, apparently suffers from sarcoidosis, an immune system disease that affects the lungs and lymph nodes in particular, causing respiratory pain, weight loss and fatigue. According to ‘La Depeche’, which has consulted French medical sources, only half of the patients have a cure if they manage to contain it in three years; Mohamed VI’s sarcoidosis hit the headlines five years ago.
The health of the Moroccan monarch is a state secret, as are his long absences and rudeness in official acts, since he came to the throne of Rabat on the death of his father Hassan II in 1999. At first, and given the official secrecy and the festive reputation of the king – owner of twelve palaces with more than a thousand servants, and hundreds of luxury cars – the absences were attributed to the whim of the monarch. In the 2010s, public attention began to focus instead on Mohamed VI’s health, following a striking increase in weight and stark reports that he had undergone two heart operations.
🇲🇦👑|Tamesna: HM King Mohamed VI a procédé aujourd’hui à l’inauguration of the Cité des Métiers et des Compétences de la région Rabat – Salé – Kénitra, an établissement de formation professionnelle de nouvelle génération au service de l’ excellence et de l’innovation. pic.twitter.com/AQU9MKlyAU
— Moroccan History 🇲🇦۞ (@MoroccanSories) May 30, 2023
In the palace gossip, the internal struggles for the succession have also begun to transcend. On paper, the path is clear: Mohamed VI’s successor will be his son, Crown Prince Mulay Hasan, who has just turned 20. However, it is frequently mentioned that the monarch’s brother, Mulay Rachid, tries to make his right prevail given the youth and inexperience of his nephew.
The succession in Morocco is not, today, an issue that worries observers of the political balances in the region, who point to the existence of a structure and a body of competent senior officials who watch over the interests of the country, beyond the abilities of the monarch. Thus, it is understood that, during the more than two decades of the reign of Mohamed VI, foreign policy has maintained a strict nationalist course, as first demonstrated by the crisis of the Perejil islands, the tensions with Spain around Ceuta and Melilla, and the intransigent struggle – waged successfully until today – around the territory of Western Sahara, which Hassan II turned into a province of Morocco.
In internal politics, the reign of Mohamed VI has known how to release Islamist ballast by granting rights to women and measures of grace towards dissidents. This attitude has saved Rabat from the inclemencies of the so-called ‘Arab Spring’ that wreaked havoc on the rest of the North African regimes.
#physical #deterioration #Mohamed #triggers #concern #Morocco