Feijóo and the Sahara: the cause of the occasion

He also reproached him for what he described as a lack of sensitivity towards the Sahrawi people. Fortunately, this comparison is neither credible nor desirable. 

Suddenly, the Popular Party has discovered the Sahrawi cause. Alberto Núñez Feijóo, in a display of sudden conviction, presents himself as the champion of a people to whom his party, in power for years, paid little attention. 

Memory is stubborn: Felipe González and José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero received the leaders of the Polisario Front at the Moncloa, while neither Aznar nor Rajoy even offered them a cup of coffee. And yet today, his successor is championing with surprising vehemence a cause that his party systematically ignored. 

One example suffices to illustrate this belated conversion. Rajoy's then foreign minister, Manuel García-Margallo, maintained a cold and distant relationship with the Polisario. While his socialist predecessors – from Ordóñez to Moratinos – publicly received delegations at the Palacio de Santa Cruz, the PP foreign minister preferred discreet, almost clandestine meetings once a year in a hidden corner of the UN Delegate Lunch. No photo. No commitment. 

The newspaper archives and available data reveal another telling aspect: during the PP governments, humanitarian aid to the Tindouf camps tended to decrease significantly. And this is no minor detail. The volume of this aid serves as a true barometer of political sensitivity towards the Sahrawi cause: while socialist governments tended to maintain or even strengthen their support, PP governments reduced it significantly. It is difficult not to ask: why now and not before? 

The paradox is twofold and, at the same time, ironic. On the one hand, it is difficult to imagine a conservative party enthusiastically embracing the Polisario Front, which has historically been linked to regimes that the PP abhors — Cuba, Nicaragua, Venezuela — and is identified in Spain with the most radical left. On the other hand, it is surprising that Feijóo should join forces in this crusade with Vox, a party whose ideological worldview is diametrically opposed to that of the Sahrawi movement. Certainly, opportunism makes for strange bedfellows. 

For its part, the Polisario committed a serious error in encouraging its supporters and friends to back the PP in the July 2023 elections. This move was based on a misreading of Spanish politics: they interpreted that a possible Alberto Núñez Feijóo government would reverse Pedro Sánchez's shift on the Sahara issue. However, this expectation ignored the discipline imposed by state foreign policy, especially in extremely sensitive relations and interests such as those between Spain and its southern neighbour. 

It should also be remembered that the Sahrawi Movement for Peace (MSP) attempted to open channels of communication with the PP. Founded in 2020 in response to the Polisario's democratic deficit and its single-party system, the MSP defines itself as a moderate organisation, supportive of a multi-party system and a peaceful solution. With Pablo Casado, there was at least a willingness to engage in dialogue: meetings were held at the party's headquarters in Génova with the head of international relations. With Feijóo, however, there has been absolute silence. The same silence that would probably prevail in the Moncloa, where grandiloquent rhetoric often gives way to cold ‘realpolitik’ and strategic interests with Morocco. 

It is legitimate for the PP to want to distinguish itself from the PSOE. What is less credible is that this sudden fervour for the Sahara will stand the test of time and, above all, the test of power. If previous governments have taught us anything, it is that, in this matter, words are often carried away by the desert wind. 

Is this a sincere change of course or a belated conviction? The evidence seems to point in another direction. For Feijóo, the Sahara issue could be interpreted as an element of political strategy: a topic that is used in the campaign to differentiate himself from Pedro Sánchez's government. It remains to be seen whether this position will be maintained once he hypothetically comes to power. 

I am convinced that from that position he will have no choice but to opt for a realistic and pragmatic approach. Given this prospect, the MSP remains willing to reopen communication with the main opposition party in Spain and listen to another, less radical and more sensible point of view on the compromise solution, in which there are no winners or losers and where, in truth, the PP can comfortably position itself either from the opposition or the executive. 

Meanwhile, the Sahara will seem like nothing more than a backdrop: a banner waved during the campaign, a rhetorical device to make Pedro Sánchez uncomfortable... and which will vanish as soon as the spotlight on the rally is turned off and the lights of the Moncloa are turned on. 

Hach Ahmed, first secretary of the Sahrawi Movement for Peace (MSP)