Sahrawi nationality as a possible trigger for the crisis with Morocco
Western Sahara is a territory in the process of decolonization, the last colony in Africa. Spain continues to be the de jure administering power. If the referendum were held today, only Sahrawis originating from the territory and their descendants, who appear on a census compiled by the United Nations in 1999 based on the Spanish census of 1974, would vote. According to the aforementioned census, there are 86,386 voters, to whom direct descendants must be added, making the number of people eligible to vote around 200,000 to 250,000. Moroccan settlers transferred to the territory after 1975, as well as civil servants, military personnel, and their families displaced by Rabat, would be excluded. The question in the referendum would be: Do you wish for the independence of Western Sahara or its integration into Morocco? The idea of Western Sahara being an autonomous region under Moroccan sovereignty is a proposal unilaterally designed by the Alawite kingdom that does not supersede the right to self-determination recognized by the UN. The aforementioned 1999 census is not a census of nationalities, but of Sahrawis originating from the territory; it includes people with Spanish, Moroccan, Algerian nationality, and also stateless persons.
In this legal context, a bill is being processed in the Spanish Parliament that allows Sahrawis born under Spanish administration—and their descendants—to apply for Spanish nationality. On the 10th, the bill's opinion was approved in the plenary session of the Congress, and it must now proceed to the Senate. The law has generated intense debate because it touches upon one of the most sensitive elements of the conflict, which is the legal identity of the Sahrawi population. For Morocco, this law is not neutral. The Moroccan press, aligned with the Government, has described it as direct interference in its territorial integrity, and former minister Mustapha El Khalfi has warned that it could create in Spain "a new focus of support for separatism." This does not necessarily mean that it is the cause of the recent invasion of Ceuta, but it does constitute a reasonable hypothesis within a set of tensions that have coincided at the same time.
Part of the Spanish Government maintains that the invasion of Ceuta is a spontaneous migratory crisis, a result of social media, mafias, and disinformation. Minister Albares has even pointed to Elon Musk, while Pedro Sánchez has mentioned Russia and Israel, which has provoked immediate diplomatic reactions from both countries. However, the majority of Congress maintains that the Spanish Government knew what was going to happen and did nothing to prevent it. The reasons for this are unknown. In recent hours, the Pegasus hypothesis has gained weight, that is, the information that Morocco allegedly obtained from the phone of Pedro Sánchez and some of his ministers. Another hypothesis refers to the law that foresees granting Spanish nationality to Sahrawis. Let us remember that this is the taboo subject of the monarchy of the Sultan of the Atlas, it is their red line. The malik, that is, the monarch, must achieve the incorporation of the Sahara into the Alaouite kingdom, yes or yes. If this is not the case, in our opinion, the monarchy of "Al-Maghrib al-Aqṣà", which is how Mohamed VI calls his country, that is, "The Farthest West", could even be in danger.
And in this line, a contradiction appears that is difficult to manage, given that in 2022 Pedro Sánchez, being an ally of Donald Trump and Netanyahu in this matter, publicly supported the Moroccan autonomy plan as "the most serious and credible basis" for resolving the Western Sahara conflict. However, now, in the midst of the very serious Ceuta crisis, his Government and the majority of Congress have supported a law that recognizes specific rights for Sahrawis and legitimizes documents such as the UN census. For Morocco, this double position makes no sense whatsoever; on the one hand, Spain supports its proposal, but on the other, it approves a norm that reinforces Sahrawi legal identity.
Meanwhile, the Polisario Front has increased its attacks against Moroccan positions along the wall that divides Western Sahara, which could be interpreted by Rabat as a sign that the Polisario feels backed by the international political climate. For Algeria, the main supporter of the Polisario, they are a way of remembering that the conflict is still alive, and in this vein, "the giant of the Maghreb" has broken diplomatic relations with the United Arab Emirates, one of the countries that openly supports the Moroccan plan on the Sahara. This gesture does not seem to be directly related to Ceuta, but it is part of the regional realignment around the Sahrawi conflict. Algeria is hardening its position, Morocco feels surrounded, and Spain is caught in the middle of an increasingly polarized chessboard. As Felipe González recalled in a recent conference in Lanzarote, we have returned to 19th-century geopolitics, a world without a hegemonic power in which the maxim, popularized by Hobbes, that man is a wolf to man, homo homini lupus, is once again imposed.
I am unable to find a single explanation for everything that is happening, nor to determine if there is a direct relationship between all these elements. Be that as it may, the Sahrawi nationality law, the Spanish diplomatic contradiction, the Polisario attacks, Algeria's movement, migratory pressure as a political tool, and the Pegasus investigation form a set of simultaneous tensions that have turned the Strait into a pressure cooker. I leave it to the kind reader to draw their own conclusions, if they can.
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