The recent reforms of the Moroccan local government offer interesting sites to investigate the possible articulations between urban planing and citizenship in the age of "globalisation". They raise question on the nature of power relations and competing forms of legitimacy within the city. The new Communal Charter adopted in October of 2002 provides a series of reforms which are both deeply grounded in Moroccan urban history - and its political stakes in the nation - and greatly inspired by contemporary norms of ‘good governance'.
This chapter presents the national and ideological context in which the new reforms of decentralisation are introduced. Then, it compares two authoritative local figures and their evolution, the Mayor and the Wali (governor) in order to question the political resources given by technical competencies and by elective legitimacy. In the last part the analysis of the 2003 elections shows that the cities, in a context of globalisation, remain a political scene where the struggle between representation and technical competence are still played out.