Algeria Eyes Spanish Election for Potential Diplomatic Reset

"Algeria will be very attentive to what is going to happen," sources close to the Algerian authorities tell El Independiente, hoping for a defeat of Pedro Sanchez’s party (PSOE) and a change at the Moncloa to initiate a timid thaw in relations between the two countries. In this crisis with Spain that has lasted for 14 months, Algeria has decided to strengthen its ties with Portugal in the fields of energy and maritime transport. This is evidenced by the visit last week of Algerian President Abdelmadjid Tebboune to Lisbon.

The Moncloa has "aligned [with Morocco] on the issue of Western Sahara with secret attitudes that engage its responsibility," the Algerian president recently said, attributing the current hostility towards Spain to "the individual position" of Pedro Sanchez. The day after the change of position on the Sahara, Algeria had suspended its treaty of good neighborliness and cooperation with Spain, effectively closing its market to Spanish companies and forcing Algerian companies to turn to Italy, Germany and Portugal.

Algiers claims to maintain good relations with the other political parties. In an interview last year, Nuñez Feijóo, the president of the Partido Popular (PP), pledged to "restore relations with Algeria." "This is an inheritance that all the previous prime ministers have left us. They all had good relations (with Algeria). It is a country with which we had a friendship treaty," he said. At the same time, he intends to "strengthen the ties of neighborhood, reciprocity, honesty and loyalty between Morocco and Spain."

For observers and analysts, the PP cannot go back on the change of position on the Sahara without opening a new crisis with Morocco. The Algerian authorities are waiting to see if this party, once in the Moncloa, will be able to change this position and return to Spain’s "active neutrality" and historical position, recalling the good relations at the time of José María Aznar, who was confronting Morocco over its claims on the islet of Perejil (Leila).