While international debate over the Moroccan Sahara remains largely structured around the Polisario Front, demographic and electoral data raise a fundamental question: can anyone claim to represent a people without fully accounting for its geographical, social, and political diversity, and for its choices?
There are some questions that diplomacy would rather leave in the shadows, particularly when they threaten to unsettle arrangements that have stood for decades. The political representativeness of the Sahrawis is one of them. Behind the official statements, international resolutions, and protracted negotiations, one basic question remains unanswered: who actually speaks for the Sahrawis, and on what basis can that representativeness be assessed?
The Polisario Front occupies a central position in the political process conducted under United Nations auspices. It claims to represent the Sahrawi people in pursuit of its self-determination project. Its diplomatic standing is real, but that standing alone does not prove that all Sahrawis identify with the organization or share its political objectives.
Sahrawi society cannot be reduced to a single organization, just as a people cannot automatically be equated with self-appointed representatives or with those granted privileged access to a diplomatic process. Representativeness should therefore be examined through demographic, electoral, and institutional evidence rather than political assumptions.
Let’s consider the actual population figures
The results of Morocco’s 2024 General Population and Housing Census, published by Morocco’s High Commission for Planning (HCP), put the combined population of the Guelmim-Oued Noun, Laayoune-Sakia El Hamra, and Dakhla-Oued Ed-Dahab regions at 1,023,443.
Laayoune-Sakia El Hamra has a population of 419,169, Guelmim-Oued Noun 417,663, and Dakhla-Oued Ed-Dahab 186,611.
These figures provide an essential starting point for understanding the demographic makeup and evolution of Morocco’s southern regions. They also attest to a substantial population living in this part of the country and taking part, to varying degrees, in the kingdom’s economic, social, and institutional life.
It is worth noting that Guelmim-Oued Noun includes territory north of the disputed Sahara, and its inhabitants are also Sahrawis. They are therefore included in the total of 1,023,443 people counted across the three regions.
One question nevertheless deserves to be asked: why are the Sahrawis living in Morocco’s southern provinces, their demographic evolution, and their participation in public institutions so rarely factored, systematically and comparatively, into discussions of political representation in international forums on the Sahara? And why should Sahrawis living elsewhere in the kingdom not be taken into account as well? These include Sahrawis in Rhamna, for instance, the region the Polisario’s leader hails from.
Statistical evidence indicates that the majority of Sahrawis live in Morocco’s southern provinces. Anyone disputing that conclusion would need comparable data, based on a clear definition of the Sahrawi population held in the Tindouf camps.
The Sahrawi population cannot be reduced to those living in the Tindouf camps, nor can the Polisario’s political voice be assumed, by definition, to encompass the full range of Sahrawi opinion.
A Humanitarian planning figure for Tindouf is no substitute for a census
Across the border, United Nations humanitarian agencies use a figure of 173,600 people to plan assistance for Sahrawis in the camps around Tindouf, Algeria. This figure is not the product of an identification exercise or a census, as Algeria has consistently refused to conduct either for the past 50 years.
The figure, used notably in the 2024-2025 humanitarian plan, is an important reference for organizing aid and assessing needs. And yet, it must be understood for what it is: an operational estimate used by humanitarian organizations, not the result of a recent, comprehensive census of every individual in the camps.
The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees’ 2024 annual report states that, by the end of that year, neither the UNHCR nor the host country had formally registered refugees in the camps on an individual basis.
This matters. It points to a statistical gap that makes it difficult to establish a precise demographic picture of the population concerned, all the more so given indications that many camp residents have no connection to the Moroccan Sahara.
The real question, then, is how much we actually know about this population. How many people genuinely live in the camps? What is their demographic composition? What are their needs, and under what conditions can their rights be fully protected?
These are not peripheral questions, nor are they purely political. They concern human dignity, the effectiveness of humanitarian assistance, and the credibility of any process meant to determine the territory’s future.
Algeria, which hosts the camps and plays a central role in the dispute, necessarily has a crucial part to play in this discussion. The modalities of a possible census, the terms of cooperation with international organizations, and the safeguards needed to protect the rights of those concerned all deserve serious consideration.
A reliable census should be conceived neither as a diplomatic weapon against Algeria nor as an exercise to bolster the positions of Morocco or the Polisario. It should instead be treated as a tool for establishing the facts, protecting rights, and ensuring transparency.
How can a durable political process be built when the data on the very population at its center remain imprecise and difficult to compare?
Elections in the south: the institutional reality that must be taken into account
Representativeness is not simply a demographic question. It also concerns the political participation of people living in Morocco’s southern provinces.
Legislative, municipal, and regional elections held within Morocco’s institutional framework allow citizens registered on the electoral rolls to choose their representatives. Elected officials from the southern provinces sit on municipal, provincial, and regional councils, as well as in Parliament, and many also hold senior positions in national public institutions.
This participation is a political reality that deserves to be documented and examined. It is an indispensable element of any serious assessment of how the people of these regions are represented institutionally.
The figures from the 2021 legislative elections offer an initial indication of this participation. Official turnout was reported at 66.94% in Laayoune-Sakia El Hamra and 58.30% in Dakhla-Oued Ed-Dahab. In the September 2026 legislative elections, official turnout in the two regions rose to roughly 77% and 61%, respectively.
These percentages are important indicators of how engaged the population is with the territory’s political status and the different solutions on the table. The people concerned are directly affected by these choices and must have a direct say in them.
This is a fundamental point.
Participation in elections held within a given institutional framework demonstrates that mechanisms of representation exist and that the citizens concerned are exercising their political rights. To disregard these institutions and the people who hold office within them would be to exclude a genuine component of political life in the southern provinces.
The relevant question, then, is not whether these elected officials should be regarded as the sole legitimate representatives of all Sahrawis. It is how their institutional experience, local roots, and understanding of social realities can be brought into a political process that claims to seek a lasting solution.
The Polisario, elected Officials in the South, and other Sahrawi political currents
The debate must therefore account for a third dimension: the existence of other forms of Sahrawi political expression.
The Sahrawis for Peace movement, in particular, advocates an approach distinct from the Polisario’s and seeks to make an alternative voice heard in the international debate. Its representatives have sought a place in UN discussions so that Sahrawi constituencies that do not identify with the Polisario can also be heard.
The existence of this movement does not, by itself, establish its actual weight among the population. It does, however, serve as a reminder that Sahrawi politics cannot be reduced to a standoff between Morocco and the Polisario.
Here, we must resist the temptation to replace one claim to exclusive representation with another. If the Polisario’s claim to a monopoly on representation is challenged, it would be equally inconsistent to argue that elected officials from the southern provinces automatically represent all Sahrawis on their own. It should not be overlooked, however, that they represent the overwhelming majority of the Sahrawi population.
Representativeness cannot simply be proclaimed. It must be assessed against explicit criteria: electoral participation, freedom of expression, the ability to defend collective interests, political pluralism, social rootedness, and the opportunity for citizens to express differing preferences.
The Polisario’s political structures provide no reliable data, and it is widely acknowledged that the camps fall short on every one of these criteria. Algeria, directly or indirectly, dictates the terms of political choice there.
This gap should encourage international actors to deepen their understanding of Sahrawi diversity rather than turn political claims into demographic certainties.
Can the UN continue to treat representativeness as a secondary question?
The United Nations is tasked with facilitating a political solution to the Moroccan Sahara dispute within the framework of Security Council resolutions. The UN-led process gives the Polisario a central role in negotiations. But the need for identifiable interlocutors must not be confused with statistical proof of universal political support.
It is legitimate to ask whether a political process can gain credibility when the different constituencies within a population are not all heard with the same attention or given the same opportunity to take part.
Yet raising this question does not require denying the Polisario’s role. Rather, it should prompt a broader look at Sahrawi social and political realities.
Residents of the southern provinces who take part in Moroccan institutions have political and social experience that cannot reasonably be treated as nonexistent. The people living in the Tindouf camps also have rights and aspirations that must not be reduced to the positions of their leaders. And Sahrawis who do not fully identify with any existing form of representation must likewise be able to express their views without pressure.
A more inclusive approach could help identify the expectations of these different constituencies, assess the conditions under which they can participate, and determine the safeguards needed to ensure their views are expressed freely.
This requires distinguishing verifiable facts from political claims, existing institutional mechanisms from assertions of a right to speak for an entire population, and demographic data from the conclusions some would like to draw from them.
The debate over the Moroccan Sahara would be more serious if these distinctions were consistently applied.
Beyond fixed notions of representation
After decades of conflict, it is time to move beyond diplomatic reflexes that freeze actors and their roles in place.
HCP data demonstrate the demographic weight of Morocco’s three southern regions. Humanitarian statistics give an approximate sense of the population accounted for in the Tindouf camps, but they are no substitute for a comprehensive individual census. Moroccan elections document the institutional participation of residents of the southern provinces and offer a direct measure of the political preferences of the overwhelming majority of the Sahrawi population.
How can a lasting solution be built without a better understanding of the population concerned, without listening to the diversity of its political voices, and without accurately measuring the real weight of those who claim to be its sole representatives?
The international community should encourage an approach grounded in verifiable data, a clearer understanding of demographic realities, and respect for the rights of people living in the camps. Above all, it should ensure that the different Sahrawi political constituencies are taken into account, particularly the majority living in Morocco, both in the southern provinces and elsewhere in the kingdom.
The point is neither to designate a single representative in advance nor to replace one proclaimed claim to legitimacy with another. It is to create the conditions for a political process that better reflects the complexity of Sahrawi society.
One question remains, and it deserves to be asked directly: can anyone claim to defend a people’s right to choose its future without seriously examining the diversity of its opinions, the conditions under which those opinions can be expressed, the grounds on which those speaking in its name base their authority, and the very means by which they were chosen? How did they come to declare themselves the sole representatives of an entire people?
The Sahrawi population cannot be reduced to a diplomatic abstraction. It is made up of men and women living in different circumstances, participating in different institutions, and potentially holding different aspirations. This would remain true even if the people in the camps had chosen their representatives democratically.
By choosing to receive representatives of another Sahrawi political current, US Ambassador to the UN Mike Waltz signaled that Washington appears to recognize the Polisario as only one faction that cannot claim to be the sole representative of the Sahrawis. This sends a significant message to the Security Council and the wider UN community, and it is likely what is troubling the separatists and their longstanding sponsor, Algeria.
In recent days, they have turned their criticism on Staffan de Mistura, seemingly because they cannot directly accuse the United States. It is yet another desperate attempt to cast themselves, as they habitually do, as oppressed victims. The next resolution, it appears, will go even further than the previous one in exposing the weakness of their arguments.
Sahrawi pluralism should no longer remain a blind spot in the peace process. It should be one of the realities on which any just and lasting settlement is built, within the framework of Morocco’s Autonomy Plan and no other.
Read also: MSP Warns Polisario’s Threat to Quit UN Process Could Sabotage Western Sahara Peace
