Spain’s Podemos mulish insistence on anti-Moroccan blunders

Spanish Secretary of state in charge of social rights Nacho Alvarez decided to go carelessly against the current of his government making a storm in a very small cup by hosting a Polisario delegation in his office.

Alvarez went further in his anti-Moroccan sentiment and provocation to express in the name of the Spanish government his solidarity with what he called “a Sahrawi people.”

This provocation goes against the official Spanish position in support of the UN process in the Sahara and seems detached from the context of ever-closer Moroccan-Spanish ties.

Neither Spain nor any other state in the EU recognizes the Polisario self-proclaimed SADR, which is in fact based in camps controlled by Algeria where thousands have been living in abject conditions denied from freedom of movement or return to their homeland Morocco.

The reckless move by the Podemos cabinet member will for sure trigger a response from Morocco, which has so far abstained from any meddling in Spain’s domestic affairs where separatism is claimed in Catalonia and elsewhere.

Nor has Morocco reacted to the brutal crackdown on pro-separatism in Catalonia where Spanish authorities responded through a security approach mixed with heavy sentences to independence proponents.

It is worth mentioning Podemos double speak by promoting separatism in southern Morocco while abstaining from supporting the Catalan independence movement.

Podemos has made of its anti-Moroccan rhetoric a tool for political mobilization surfing of the wave of populism in the country.