Podemos Party Softens Stance on Western Sahara Dispute

The fourth political force has to its credit many incendiary statements and tendentious maneuvers against the kingdom. In November 2018, the deputies of this formation had planned to organize, in the Spanish parliament, a conference on the Sahara, without the presence of Morocco. Thanks to a strong mobilization of the deputies of the Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party (PSOE) as well as those of the Popular Party (PP), the plan of the formation of Pablo Iglesias had fallen through.

It is therefore entirely legitimate that questions remain about the positions of the new coalition government with regard to the issue of the delimitation of maritime borders but also to the issue of the Sahara. This apprehension was revived by two very recent facts, including the closure of the administrative office of Spain in Laayoune on February 13 last.

The decision was made on the occasion of the meeting held on January 24 in Rabat at the residence of Ambassador Ricardo Díez-Hochleitner Rodríguez, between the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Arancha Gonzalez, and the consuls of the Iberian country accredited in Morocco. Henceforth, the Sahrawis concerned must travel to the Spanish consulate in Rabat for any administrative document.

The second fact took place on February 21. The Secretary of State for Social Affairs, Nacho Alvarez, from the Podemos political formation, after an interview with Souilla Birouk, who calls herself a "Sahrawi minister", left a message on his Twitter account where he openly expressed his "solidarity with the Sahrawi people", before deleting it.

While reframing the zeal of his colleague, the Spanish Minister of Foreign Affairs assured the department of Nasser Bourita of Spain’s official position on the Moroccan Sahara file.