Escalation of Siege on Sanchez’s Stance Towards Western Sahara

BY: Dr. Hana Saada

ALGIERS- The Spanish opposition believes that despite the change in its stance on the Western Sahara issue, the government led by Pedro Sanchez has failed to protect Spanish interests in Morocco. Additionally, it has not succeeded in restoring normal relations with Algeria. This has led to demands from the opposition for the government to correct its positions, which have brought Madrid into political troubles with its southern neighbors.

This political analysis was the focal point of a parliamentary move by the Spanish opposition last Wednesday, demanding that the coalition government adopt a “state policy regarding Western Sahara that helps restore political consensus on this conflict and implement the will expressed by the Parliament.” The Parliament has repeatedly rejected the sudden and unjustified shift in Sanchez’s government regarding the Western Sahara issue.

Sanchez’s political adversaries accuse his government of cozying up to the Moroccan regime without safeguarding Spanish interests, especially concerning the situation in the enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla and the issue of illegal migration, which continues due to the other party’s (the Moroccan Kingdom) lack of commitment to the agreed-upon terms between Sanchez and King Mohammed VI in the spring of 2022.

After two years, questions still linger regarding the message conveyed by Sanchez to the Moroccan monarch. According to “El Independiente” newspaper, it remains unclear who drafted the message and who delivered it, given the numerous errors it contained, including the name of the Foreign Ministry itself. The opposition views that the Spanish Prime Minister “has shattered over four decades of consistent positions on this conflict by successive Spanish governments, both the People’s Party and the Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party, regarding this conflict,” referring to the support for the Moroccan autonomy plan presented by the Moroccan regime to resolve the Western Sahara issue.

All these factors have created favorable conditions for delivering a political blow to Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez and his Socialist Workers’ Party, which suffered another defeat in Parliament, the first during this legislative term, regarding the Western Sahara conflict, due to his suspicious relations with the Moroccan regime.

The proposal, submitted by the opposition Popular Party, was approved by the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Spanish Parliament last Wednesday. It calls on the coalition government to “restore political consensus on this dispute and comply with the will expressed by the Parliament throughout 2022, explicitly defending the right of the Sahrawi people to self-determination.”

The proposal received 24 yes votes and 13 no votes, gaining support from the Suma, Bildu, and PNV parties, which are partners in Pedro Sanchez’s coalition government. This can be considered a painful political blow to the government’s policy led by Sanchez for the second consecutive term, which is now threatened with future political crises if it fails to address the concerns raised by its partners and political adversaries.

Pablo Hispán, a deputy for the opposition Popular Party, explained after the proposal’s adoption: “It’s about restoring consensus on one of the main issues in Spanish foreign policy.” For him, Sanchez’s actions regarding Madrid’s position on the Western Sahara issue “have violated consensus… a fact that has not been explained even to the Spanish people, and the Parliament has distanced itself from it on three occasions during the previous legislative term.”

The proposal also emphasizes the need to “inform the Spanish Parliament about the agreed-upon timeline with the Moroccan regime for reopening commercial customs, which remains secret to this day, along with providing a report on the activities and proposals formulated by the Secretary-General’s envoy to Western Sahara, Staffan de Mistura, as well as the situation in Western Sahara and the work of the MINURSO mission.”

In this context, Salamou Hamoudi Bechri, the political relations officer at the Polisario Front’s office in Spain, affirmed in a statement to “APS” that the emergence of such party initiatives, especially from the winning Popular Party in the recent legislative elections, which has the largest popular base in Spain, and its call on the coalition government led by Pedro Sanchez to comply with the will expressed by Parliament in 2022 in defense of the Sahrawi people’s right to self-determination, is “only evidence of the victory of the Sahrawi cause and international legitimacy.”

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