Spain moves to grant citizenship to 200,000 Sahrawis: redress or voter roll

200,000 Sahrawis regain the citizenship Franco stripped from them

In June 2020, Spain's Supreme Court shut the door with a blunt ruling: being born in Western Sahara before 1975 did not entitle anyone to Spanish citizenship, because that territory was never part of Spain, but a colony. The original Sahrawi population and their descendants were left out. Now the Spanish government is drafting a law to hand them back their passports: up to 200,000 people born under the Spanish flag could regain Spanish citizenship. The figure allows two readings — historical redress or a move on the electoral chessboard — and neither can be dismissed.

What the law changes and who it covers

The law opens a path to restoration for those born in the former Spanish province and for their descendants. MP Enrique Santiago framed it as an outstanding debt: Franco's dictatorship, he said, took their citizenship away «in an act of treachery and cowardice». The text stops short of expressly recognising that these people were Spanish, a nuance that is not trivial. And the window to apply is limited to three years after the law comes into force: once that time has passed, even if the right exists, the door will be closed.

The standoff: new voters or long-overdue redress?

Much of the controversy is not about law, but about ballots. It is claimed the operation aims to manufacture sympathetic voters, and postal voting from the refugee camps in Algeria is pointed to as a supposed route to manipulating the electoral roll. The counterargument is simple: there is no reason to assume this group will vote for the left, and many have experienced the worst side of Spanish policy in the region. Parliamentary arithmetic adds noise: if the PP (the main conservative opposition party) abstains, the government does not need to tie down other allies to pass the law. The calculation, depending on who does the sums, changes sign.

The wound of the Sahara: from province 53 to 1975

Western Sahara was once Spain's 53rd province. In 1975, with Franco already dying, Spain handed over the territory. Half a century later, the law makes Segarro uneasy, wary of a step that grants a distinct identity to citizens of Western Sahara. Phosphates, iron, oil, fishing and gas remain on the table. And an uncomfortable question hangs over the file: if their citizenship is being returned, why not the territory?

In population terms, 200,000 people are a Salamanca and a Zamora added overnight to schools, hospitals and the pension pot. The figures of a law are counted in the official gazette; those of a migration, at the border. Neither adds up yet.