The Diplomat
Members of the Polisario Front in Spain, led by its delegate in Spain, Abdulah Arabi, attended yesterday the second day of the 20th Extraordinary Congress of the PP held in Seville, which elected Alberto Núñez Feijóo as the new leader of the party, replacing Pablo Casado.
The presence of the Polisario leaders comes a couple of weeks after the government of Pedro Sánchez reversed Spain’s position on Western Sahara, giving clear backing to Morocco’s autonomy plan for the former Spanish colony, a decision that naturally provoked the repudiation of the Saharawis,
The Polisario Front was also present with a delegation at the last Congress of the PSOE, a party with which it has always maintained a close relationship.
The Polisario Front delegate in Spain thanked the Popular Party for the invitation to participate in the congress, and stated in a message on his Twitter account: “What a joy to meet and greet some representatives of the Intergroups ‘Peace and Freedom for the Saharawi people’ in the Congress of the Popular Party”.
The ‘populares’ have harshly criticised the change in the government’s position on the Sahara. On Wednesday, in the plenary session of the Congress of Deputies, the spokesperson of the Popular Group, Cuca Gamarra, denounced the “loneliness” of the President of the Government after his “Copernican turn”, taking “sides” with Rabat, alluding to the lack of support from all groups, including his government partners and parliamentary allies.
He criticised Pedro Sánchez for having taken “this turn behind the back” of Parliament, causing the “rupture of 47 years of consensual policy” with regard to the Sahara, which was “one of the few issues on which all the groups shared the same position”. In his opinion, the head of the Executive goes “beyond” what countries such as France and Germany have signed, he stressed that Spain “does not deserve this”.
