Sept. 8 Elections ‘Dazzlingly’ Confirm Southern Population Attachment to Morocco – Expert

The Moroccan September 8 elections have “dazzlingly” confirmed the attachment of the population in Morocco’s southern provinces to their country, said, on Wednesday in New York, Nikaky Lygeros, university professor and expert in geopolitics and geostrategy. “The inhabitants of Moroccan Sahara’s two regions have already displayed, in the past, a high degree of civic-mindedness,” Lygeros stressed before the UN General Assembly 4th Committee, adding that once again, “they have just reconfirmed [their civic-mindedness] in a dazzling manner” on the occasion of these elections. He also noted that with a voter turnout of 66.94% in Laayoune-Sakia El Hamra and 58.30% in Dakhla-Oued Eddahab, these two Moroccan Sahara regions exceed, by far, the national average of 50.35%. This massive participation is a strong signal of the unwavering commitment of the people of the Sahara to their Moroccanness and their active and effective involvement in building the country’s institutions, as part of an ambitious process of advanced regionalization, he pointed out. In addition, he stressed that these regions have, from now on, broad powers allowing them to manage local affairs, participate in State general policy implementation and develop territorial policies through their representatives in the House of Advisors, stressing that the regionalization process is bearing fruit on multiple levels. Polisario leaders preserve their positions through “a clever musical chairs game”, as they eliminate potential or declared rivals and disregard the basics of democracy and political participation, the expert pointed out. Since its creation, the polisario has only been a tool for “an external hegemonic agenda” to destabilize the region, he emphasized. It is a structure of the past that has no future, he added. Lygeros concluded that the true legitimate representatives of the Sahara are the locally elected officials of the region, which have ben invited by the UN to take part in the work of the C24 since 2018.