Morocco: Self-isolation, Social Distancing Are a Luxury That Poor Families Can't Afford

In this in Wednesday, March 25, 2020 photo, volunteers disinfect an overcrowded housing complex to prevent the spread of coronavirus in Sale, near Rabat, Morocco. (AP Photo/Mosa'ab Elshamy)
In this in Wednesday, March 25, 2020 photo, volunteers disinfect an overcrowded housing complex to prevent the spread of coronavirus in Sale, near Rabat, Morocco. (AP Photo/Mosa'ab Elshamy)
TT

Morocco: Self-isolation, Social Distancing Are a Luxury That Poor Families Can't Afford

In this in Wednesday, March 25, 2020 photo, volunteers disinfect an overcrowded housing complex to prevent the spread of coronavirus in Sale, near Rabat, Morocco. (AP Photo/Mosa'ab Elshamy)
In this in Wednesday, March 25, 2020 photo, volunteers disinfect an overcrowded housing complex to prevent the spread of coronavirus in Sale, near Rabat, Morocco. (AP Photo/Mosa'ab Elshamy)

More than 900 people live in crowded rooms without running water or an income to support them in a housing complex in the Moroccan city of Sale. The country entered total lockdown in mid-March, however, self-isolation and social distancing are a luxury that families in this complex cannot afford.

Some families have lived in their room for 40 years, steadily filling it with children and grandchildren, with some rooms housing up to 10 people. Almost all are marginalized, and since the outbreak of COVID-19, those who had jobs - such as working in gas stations or selling small items on the streets - have been left with no way to make a living, the Associated Press reported.

Like countries around the world, Morocco is facing the challenge of how to protect populations from the fast-spreading virus while not punishing the poor.

In early March, the Moroccan government began rolling out measures to stem the spread of the virus, culminating in the ongoing lockdown that has turned once bustling cities into ghost towns.

Borders, schools, shops, companies, cafes and mosques have closed. Movement between cities is restricted. Only one member of each household is permitted to leave in order to buy necessities, and those who work in essential jobs must have government-approved permission slips to show at checkpoints or risk facing up to three months in prison.

As the measures started to pinch vulnerable families, Morocco approved emergency support packages to people not registered in public or private sector jobs.

The fund supporting such measures was established by Moroccan King Mohamed VI, and saw mobilization by institutions, businesses and officials.

At the housing complex in Sale´s old medina, children hang around the communal courtyard and run through narrow alleyways. Families share one room where they wash clothes, and fill buckets of water at public fountains.

Volunteers have stepped in to help, visiting the residence to disinfect surfaces, trying to prevent an outbreak of the virus in this crowded corner of Sale.

Kaddour El Miny used to sell water to shoppers in the medina. A job that brought in very little before the COVID-19 lockdown has now stopped entirely.

Ilyas, 61, lives with eight family members. "My sons can´t find jobs."

"We don´t rely on savings or a salary. If we don´t go out to work one day, then we go to sleep hungry."

Teams of volunteers in hazmat suits from Mohamed El Gaid´s aid group Shabab el Mowatana have been visiting slums and densely populated buildings like this one to help clean.

Local authorities supplied a room near a mosque where volunteers gather, store equipment and get water.

"We had to take the initiative and try to complement the government effort," El Gaid said.

"Every effort is necessary."

"We´re all from Sale and want to make a difference," he added, AP reported.

As the volunteers walk up through the tiny stairs of the complex, they´re received with relief and gratitude. People pray out loud for the workers as they disinfect walls and floors.

Residents hope that this will be enough to save them from a contagion they can´t risk facing.



Win the Vote but Still Lose? Behold America’s Electoral College

Voters head into a polling location to cast their ballots on the last day of early voting for the 2024 election on November 1, 2024 in Atlanta, Georgia. (Getty Images/AFP)
Voters head into a polling location to cast their ballots on the last day of early voting for the 2024 election on November 1, 2024 in Atlanta, Georgia. (Getty Images/AFP)
TT

Win the Vote but Still Lose? Behold America’s Electoral College

Voters head into a polling location to cast their ballots on the last day of early voting for the 2024 election on November 1, 2024 in Atlanta, Georgia. (Getty Images/AFP)
Voters head into a polling location to cast their ballots on the last day of early voting for the 2024 election on November 1, 2024 in Atlanta, Georgia. (Getty Images/AFP)

When political outsider Donald Trump defied polls and expectations to defeat Hillary Clinton in the 2016 US presidential election, he described the victory as "beautiful."

Not everyone saw it that way -- considering that Democrat Clinton had received nearly three million more votes nationally than her Republican rival. Non-Americans were particularly perplexed that the second-highest vote-getter would be the one crowned president.

But Trump had done what the US system requires: win enough individual states, sometimes by very narrow margins, to surpass the 270 Electoral College votes necessary to win the White House.

Now, on the eve of the 2024 election showdown between Trump and Democrat Kamala Harris, the rules of this enigmatic and, to some, outmoded, system is coming back into focus.

- Why an Electoral College? -

The 538 members of the US Electoral College gather in their state's respective capitals after the quadrennial presidential election to designate the winner.

A presidential candidate must obtain an absolute majority of the "electors" -- or 270 of the 538 -- to win.

The system originated with the US Constitution in 1787, establishing the rules for indirect, single-round presidential elections.

The country's Founding Fathers saw the system as a compromise between direct presidential elections with universal suffrage, and an election by members of Congress -- an approach rejected as insufficiently democratic.

Because many states predictably lean Republican or Democratic, presidential candidates focus heavily on the handful of "swing" states on which the election will likely turn -- nearly ignoring some large states such as left-leaning California and right-leaning Texas.

Over the years, hundreds of amendments have been proposed to Congress in efforts to modify or abolish the Electoral College. None has succeeded.

Trump's 2016 victory rekindled the debate. And if the 2024 race is the nail-biter that most polls predict, the Electoral College will surely return to the spotlight.

- Who are the 538 electors? -

Most are local elected officials or party leaders, but their names do not appear on ballots.

Each state has as many electors as it has members in the US House of Representatives (a number dependent on the state's population), plus the Senate (two in every state, regardless of size).

California, for example, has 54 electors; Texas has 40; and sparsely populated Alaska, Delaware, Vermont and Wyoming have only three each.

The US capital city, Washington, also gets three electors, despite having no voting members in Congress.

The Constitution leaves it to states to decide how their electors' votes should be cast. In every state but two (Nebraska and Maine, which award some electors by congressional district), the candidate winning the most votes theoretically is allotted all that state's electors.

- Controversial institution -

In November 2016, Trump won 306 electoral votes, well more than the 270 needed.

The extraordinary situation of losing the popular vote but winning the White House was not unprecedented.

Five presidents have risen to the office this way, the first being John Quincy Adams in 1824.

More recently, the 2000 election resulted in an epic Florida entanglement between Republican George W. Bush and Democrat Al Gore.

Gore won nearly 500,000 more votes nationwide, but when Florida -- ultimately following a US Supreme Court intervention -- was awarded to Bush, it pushed his Electoral College total to 271 and a hair's-breadth victory.

- True vote or simple formality? -

Nothing in the Constitution obliges electors to vote one way or another.

If some states required them to respect the popular vote and they failed to do so, they were subjected to a simple fine. But in July 2020, the Supreme Court ruled that states could impose punishments on such "faithless electors."

To date, faithless electors have never determined a US election outcome.

- Electoral College schedule -

Electors will gather in their state capitals on December 17 and cast votes for president and vice president. US law states they "meet and cast their vote on the first Tuesday after the second Wednesday in December."

On January 6, 2025, Congress will convene to certify the winner -- a nervously watched event this cycle, four years after a mob of Trump supporters attacked the US Capitol attempting to block certification.

But there is a difference. Last time, it was Republican vice president Mike Pence who, as president of the Senate, was responsible for overseeing the certification. Defying heavy pressure from Trump and the mob, he certified Biden's victory.

This time, the president of the Senate -- overseeing what normally would be the pro forma certification -- will be none other than today's vice president: Kamala Harris.

On January 20, the new president is to be sworn in.