Ghali mira a Argelia para revalidar el liderazgo del Frente Polisario en su decimosexto congreso
The sixteenth congress of the Polisario Front will begin on 13 January in a tense atmosphere. The Sahrawi political-military organisation, which is going through its lowest hours in decades, should conclude the event with the appointment of a new secretary general who will act as president of the self-proclaimed Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR), a post held since his re-election in 2016 by one of the group's founders, Brahim Ghali.
The political process will last four days and will serve to define the questioned roadmap of an organisation that has been suffering in recent months a significant loss of support for its cause, the independence of a Western Sahara today controlled de facto by Morocco.
The successive diplomatic setbacks have placed Ghali himself in a position of internal weakness, and he will try to revalidate his leadership until the next congress.
Re-elected secretary general seven years ago, almost half a century after leaving the post in the hands of the late El Uali Mustafa Sayed, the Polisario Front's first historic leader will once again need Algeria's backing to remain at the helm of the organisation, while internal voices are growing louder calling for him to step aside. The immobility in which the group is mired has provoked a flight of cadres who denounce the lack of transparency and pluralism within it.
Ghali wanted to surround himself with loyalists to supervise the organisation of the congress and ensure that nothing escapes his control. The Sahrawi leader's entourage that has carried out the preparations includes the diplomat Mohamed Salem Ould Salek, who acts as the Polisario's Foreign Minister, Mohamed Yeslem Beissat, the organisation's highest representative in South Africa, Jira Bulahi Abad, Minister of Health, and the group's former representative to the European Union, Mohamed Sedati.
However, nothing hides the discontent within the Polisario and the internal and external currents of renewal.
Ghali's second term at the head of the organisation, initiated at an extraordinary congress on the occasion of the death of his predecessor, Mohamed Abdelaziz, has been marked by the resumption of hostilities with the Moroccan army after three decades of ceasefire in the Sahara. But the low-intensity war that has been going on since November 2020 has not been the only element of attrition.
The unilateral recognition of Moroccan sovereignty over Western Sahara formalised by former US President Donald Trump, and the support of the Netherlands, Germany and Spain for the proposal for autonomy under Moroccan sovereignty presented by the Alawite Kingdom in 2007 broke the deck in Rabat's favour.
These factors are compounded by the emergence of the Movement Saharawi for Peace (MSP), a dissident Saharawi platform headed by former Polisario Front member Hach Ahmed Bericalla, who denounces the organisation's drift. As well as the recent resignation of the Polisario Front's representative in Brussels, Oubi Bouchraya Bachir, due to manifest disagreements with Ghali himself.
The Polisario Front's external action depends solely and exclusively on Brahim Ghali, who has eroded the group's transparency in decision-making. Although the veteran leader, who will turn 74 in August, is at the behest of Algeria, a historic ally of the Sahrawi cause that seeks an outlet to the Atlantic and, incidentally, to destabilise its Maghreb neighbour, with whom it disputes regional hegemony.
It is the regime's top brass that has historically tipped the balance in favour of one candidate or the other.
The group's control has been particularly strengthened since the arrival of the experienced diplomat Ramtane Lamamra to the government headed by Abdelmadjid Tebboune. The Foreign Minister wants to play a decisive role in the succession of the Polisario Front's leadership, and army strongman Saïd Chengriha, the Algerian chief of staff, also has a strong voice and a vote.
