A PP councilor demands that the UN allow the Sahara to vote on independence after Vox's attack on cooperation

PalmaA PP councilor at the Council of Mallorca demanded this Friday before the United Nations the holding of a self-determination referendum in Western Sahara "that includes the option of independence." The head of Social Welfare and president of the Majorcan Institute of Social Affairs (IMAS), Guillermo Sánchez, defended in New York that the Sahrawi people be able to “freely decide their future.” He did so just one day after Vox, the popular party's governing partner at the island institution, lashed out harshly against the international cooperation policies promoted by the Council itself. Despite governing together at the Council, the PP and Vox thus maintain conflicting positions regarding the institution's external action.

Sánchez spoke before the Special Political and Decolonization Committee of the UN General Assembly, known as the Fourth Committee, where he demanded compliance with international resolutions and a “just, lasting and international law-compliant” political solution.

From the United Nations headquarters, he defended that “the Sahrawi people have demonstrated the capacity to resist. We do not ask them to continue demonstrating how much suffering they can endure”.

The intervention comes the day after a plenary session of the Council of Mallorca in which discrepancies between the PP and Vox regarding the island institution's international cooperation surfaced. The far-right party voted against the Council allocating 1.8 million euros to the Majorcan Solidarity Fund and accused the popular party of having assumed the postulates of the left.

Vox spokesperson, Antoni Gili, asserted that his party “does not believe” in either the Fund or the model of cooperation it represents and described these policies as “pseudo-aid” destined to “take little trips and play good Samaritan.” He also asked how much the “plunder of the taxpayer” derived from public contributions to international projects amounted to and defended that these resources be dedicated exclusively to the residents of Mallorca.

The participation of the two Council officials before the United Nations took place at the request of the Association of Friends of the Sahrawi People of the Balearic Islands and the Polisario Front. A day earlier, Sánchez and Ramis conveyed this same defense of the right to self-determination to the Permanent Mission of Spain to the UN.

The PP, pro-Sahrawi and pro-self-determination referendum

The demand expressed by Sánchez at the UN fits with the official position maintained by the state leadership of the PP, which defends respect for international law and the United Nations resolutions on Western Sahara. The Popular Party has distanced itself from the shift adopted in 2022 by the Spanish government of Pedro Sánchez, which assumed the autonomy plan proposed by Morocco as the “most serious, realistic and credible” basis for resolving the conflict. The PP has also supported initiatives in Congress favorable to the self-determination referendum.

“It is time to act,” the island minister defended before the UN, claiming dignified living conditions for the Sahrawi population, the protection of their rights and freedoms, and an international response that puts an end to the exile, the separation of families, and the uncertainty that have marked several generations.

The minister culminated the intervention with an express request: “To make possible a fair, lasting political solution in accordance with international law through the holding of a self-determination referendum that allows the Sahrawi people to freely decide their future”.

Children and adolescents

The island director of Centers and Programs for Comprehensive Care for Childhood and Adolescence, Magdalena Ramis, also appeared before the Fourth Committee. The head of the IMAS focused her speech on the children and adolescents who have been born and raised in the Tindouf refugee camps, without having known their land.

“No child or adolescent should have their future conditioned by the international community's inability to resolve a pending decolonization conflict,” warned Ramis. The island director acknowledged the Sahrawi people's ability to maintain their identity and organize community services under particularly adverse conditions, but warned that “resilience cannot become an excuse for inaction.” “Every year of political deadlock is a year of lost childhood. And childhood cannot continue to wait.”