The leader of the Polisario Front, Brahim Gali, was re-elected Friday with 69 percent of votes as secretary general of the Sahrawi movement and president of the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR).
Gali, who will remain in office for a period of three years, obtained 1,253 votes, representing 69 percent of the total, while his rival, Bashir Mustafa, received 31 percent of the votes, according to Saharawi television.
The vote took place within the framework of a congress held in the town of Dakhla, attended by over 2,000 delegates, to decide «the future of the Saharawi cause» and to establish the priorities of the movement, including the composition of the Secretariat and the election of the Secretary General, the highest authority of the Polisario.
The rapporteur of the Electoral Commission, Mohamed Mohamed Ismail, underlined that the body had registered no violations or obstacles preventing the congressmen from carrying out their electoral duty, the SPS news agency reported.
For his part, the Polisario delegate for Spain, Abdullah Arabi, appreciated that the congress comes at a «decisive» stage of the struggle for the decolonization of Western Sahara, especially «after the violation of the cease-fire by Morocco, which has forced the Saharawi people to resume the armed struggle», according to a statement sent by the Polisario.
Ghali, born in Smara on August 19, 1949, was elected secretary general of the Polisario in 2016 following the death of Mohamed Abdelaziz after nearly 40 years in office. Among his positions, he was minister of the occupied territories from 1998 to 1999 and Polisario representative in Spain from 1999 to 2008.
The former Spanish colony of Western Sahara was occupied by Morocco in 1975 despite the resistance of the Polisario Front, with whom it remained at war until 1991, when both parties signed a cease-fire with a view to holding a referendum on self-determination, but differences over the elaboration of the census and the inclusion or not of Moroccan settlers has so far prevented its convocation.
On November 14, 2020, the Polisario Front declared the cease-fire with Morocco broken in response to a Moroccan military action against Saharawi activists in Guerguerat, in the agreed zone of détente, which was for the Saharawis a violation of the terms of the cease-fire.
The latest setback for the Saharawi independence fighters was the support of the Spanish government for the Moroccan autonomy plan made public on March 18 in a letter addressed to the Alaouite king, Mohamed VI, a change of position described as a betrayal by the Polisario Front, which recalls that Spain is still ‘de jure’ the administering power of Western Sahara.
Source: (EUROPA PRESS)
