2026 is shaping up to be a watershed for the Sahara issue, marking an unprecedented shift in the political, diplomatic and operational handling of the dispute. Driven by an uncompromising US diplomatic offensive, the draft UN Security Council resolution fundamentally rewrites the terms of a political settlement. The Polisario Front and its Algerian backers now find themselves under relentless pressure, their outdated arguments collapsing in the face of a new diplomatic reality. This is no mere setback at the negotiating table. The text threatens the separatist militia’s very existence while opening the political and institutional door to credible, pragmatic alternatives, chief among them the Sahrawi Movement for Peace (MSP).
Polisario: Heading for an inevitable collapse
The draft resolution takes an unusually hard line, with coercive provisions designed to put an end to obstruction—something at which the Polisario has long excelled. After repeated delaying tactics and systematic sabotage by the separatist front and Algiers, the Security Council has decided that enough is enough. Without naming the Polisario, it delivers a pointed rebuke, deploring its “lack of substantive and constructive engagement” in the rounds of talks held this year under UN and US auspices. The draft also introduces an explicit means of increasing diplomatic pressure, warning parties that refuse to negotiate constructively that they could face major international sanctions.
The text places responsibility squarely on the separatist front, unequivocally condemning the cowardly attack on Es-Semara on May 5, 2026, and effectively treating its actions as those of a criminal militia. It also confronts the decades of humanitarian and political secrecy maintained by the Polisario in the Tindouf camps, where refugees have been held captive. The Council demands an immediate, comprehensive registration of the refugee population, bringing the administration of the camps under strict UNHCR standards and oversight, free from interference by any political or military authority.
Faced with this damning indictment, which leaves its longstanding assumptions in ruins, the Polisario leadership has responded with panic, disbelief and outright denial of the geopolitical realities confronting it. In an unusually agitated letter to the Security Council’s current president, Greek diplomat Aglaia Balta, the separatist leadership denounced the draft as a “grave and unprecedented departure” while clinging to the long-outdated provisions of UN Resolution 690, adopted in 1991.
Its persistent refusal to recognize the shift in the international balance of power has given rise to threats that are as reckless as they are self-defeating. By threatening to abandon the peace process altogether and once again raising the prospect of taking up arms, the Polisario has laid bare its inability to pursue politics through anything other than subversion. Western diplomatic circles see this threat to walk away as little more than an empty display of defiance, one that reinforces the Security Council’s accusations of bad faith. In doing so, the movement is effectively signing its own death warrant as a negotiating partner and party to the dispute.
Read also : Sahara: from denial to the brink — how the Polisario’s refusal to negotiate is hastening its own demise
Meanwhile, the legal and legislative pressure on the Polisario is mounting in the United States. Efforts to have the Polisario Front formally designated a Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO) are gathering momentum, led in the House of Representatives by Republican Joe Wilson and backed in the Senate through Bill S. 4063, championed by Senator Ted Cruz. The initiatives show how far perceptions of the militia have shifted. Rather than a liberation movement, it is increasingly seen as a destabilizing proxy on the fringes of the Sahel, facing the prospect of international designation as a terrorist organization and an irreversible freeze on its assets.
A credible, modern alternative
As the Polisario retreats further into futile radicalism, diplomatic isolation and the looming threat of terrorist designation, another movement is emerging as an authentic voice for the Sahrawi people: the Sahrawi Movement for Peace (MSP).
Established to challenge the self-appointed, authoritarian monopoly of the ruling clique in Tindouf, the MSP is led by its first secretary, Hach Ahmed Baricalla. Its political vision is built around the aspirations of a population worn down by decades of uncertainty and deprivation, and which sees no future either in the Polisario’s suicidal course or in the authoritarian rule of its patrons.
The movement rejects violence outright, along with the political exploitation of human suffering. Instead, it advocates a negotiated, inclusive and pragmatic settlement that would give Sahrawis genuine autonomy, sustainable economic and social development, and the opportunity to build and strengthen their own institutions.
The MSP’s approach is increasingly resonating with international decision-makers, strengthening its credentials as a political interlocutor that can no longer be ignored. A high-level meeting on June 30 between US Ambassador Mike Waltz and an MSP delegation at the US mission to the United Nations sent a powerful diplomatic signal. Washington was formally acknowledging that the Polisario does not have a monopoly on Sahrawi representation and that other, more constructive Sahrawi political voices deserve recognition.
The movement is also attracting growing attention and respect within the European Union. Influential figures, including former Spanish Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, have praised the MSP’s moderation, political maturity and courage, describing it as an indispensable source of proposals for finally bringing the conflict to an end.
It is against this backdrop that the draft 2026 resolution explicitly instructs the UN Secretary-General’s Personal Envoy, Staffan de Mistura, to broaden his consultations to include other Sahrawi political voices. The provision effectively brings the MSP into the international diplomatic equation while relegating the Polisario to the status of a disruptive, troublesome and potentially dangerous faction.
Beyond the Polisario’s predicament and the opening for moderate alternatives such as the MSP, the first draft of the 2026 resolution sets out sweeping changes to the entire framework governing the dispute. In a fundamental shift in the UN’s approach, Morocco’s expanded autonomy proposal is no longer treated simply as a “credible option” but as the sole and exclusive basis for negotiations towards a just and lasting settlement. Reflecting that change, MINURSO would be formally renamed MINUSO—the United Nations Mission for a Political Solution in Western Sahara—removing the referendum once and for all from both its name and its mandate. Its peacekeeping mission would end on April 30, 2027, with a special political mission taking over the following day.
To manage the transition, the Security Council calls for a sweeping reorganization on the ground, including the immediate start of a phased withdrawal that would reduce uniformed personnel by at least 50% by January 2027 and consolidate operational sites. The draft also demands that all parties, including Algeria and its Polisario proxy, make an unequivocal, unconditional commitment to end hostilities and cooperate fully with international mediators—or face severe punitive measures.
