A United States-backed draft UN Security Council resolution on the Sahara issue is poised to reshape the decades-old conflict, effectively sidelining the Polisario Front while elevating alternative peaceful Sahrawi voices committed to a negotiated political solution based on Morocco’s autonomy plan.
According to an analysis of the draft- also called zero draft-, the text eliminates any remaining reference to a referendum, locks in Morocco’s autonomy proposal as the exclusive framework for negotiations, and introduces unprecedented pressure mechanisms against parties that refuse constructive engagement.
The draft also calls for including other Sahrawi voices from within Morocco and outsides, effectively ending the Polisario’s claim of being the sole representative of the Sahrawi population.
The draft sharply criticizes the Polisario’s “lack of substantial and constructive engagement” in UN- and Washington-facilitated talks this year.
It condemns the May 5, 2026 attack on the city of Es-Semara as a criminal act and demands an immediate, full census of the populations in the Tindouf camps under strict UNHCR supervision, free from political or military interference.
Faced with this firm language, Polisario leaders have reacted with alarm.
In a letter to the Security Council president, they threatened again to abandon the peace process and resume armed struggle! The same struggle they said they have resumed in 2020 with no impact on the ground save propaganda campaign targeting disenchanted youth held against their will in the Tindouf camps.
Parallel developments in the United States are tightening the legal noose. Legislation advanced by Representative Joe Wilson in the House and Senator Ted Cruz in the Senate (S. 4063) seeks to designate the Polisario as a Foreign Terrorist Organization, reflecting growing views of the group as a destabilizing proxy on the edge of the Sahel rather than a legitimate liberation movement.
Amid the Polisario’s isolation, the Sahrawi Movement for Peace (MSP) is emerging as a credible alternative. Led by First Secretary Hach Ahmed Baricalla, the MSP rejects violence and the instrumentalization of human suffering.
It advocates a negotiated, inclusive solution centered on genuine autonomy, socio-economic development, and institutional empowerment for Sahrawis weary of decades of stagnation in the camps.
The movement’s rising profile was underscored on June 30, 2026, when a high-level MSP delegation met US Ambassador to the United Nations Mike Waltz at the U.S. Mission in New York.
Waltz publicly welcomed the encounter, noting that these were “Sahrawi voices committed to peace, compromise, and a durable solution.”
European figures, including former Spanish Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, have also praised the MSP’s moderation and political maturity.
The draft resolution further entrenches this shift by instructing Personal Envoy Staffan de Mistura to broaden consultations to include other Sahrawi sensitivities beyond the Polisario.
Structurally, it transforms the UN presence. The MINURSO is thus to be renamed MINUSO (United Nations Mission for a Political Solution in Western Sahara), its peacekeeping mandate ends on April 30, 2027, and it transitions to a political mission.
Uniformed personnel would be cut by at least 50 percent by January 2027, with operational sites consolidated. All parties, including Algeria, are called upon to commit unconditionally to a cessation of hostilities and full cooperation, under threat of significant consequences for non-compliance.