Moroccan parties assert claims to Ceuta and Melilla as Socialists urge restraint

With Morocco’s legislative elections two weeks away, the status of Ceuta and Melilla has returned to the campaign trail. Two opposition parties have described the Spanish cities in North Africa as part of Morocco’s historic national claim.

Nabil Benabdellah, secretary-general of the Progress and Socialism Party, made the case at a meeting in Driuch, about 75 kilometers southwest of Melilla. He said that “sooner or later” no one would be able to deny that Ceuta and Melilla are “two occupied Moroccan cities.” He also condemned an incident in Madrid in which members of the far-right Democracia Nacional tore a Moroccan flag outside the Congress of Deputies, calling it a serious insult to Moroccans.

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Sooner or later, no one will be able to deny that Ceuta and Melilla are two occupied Moroccan cities.

At the same time, Benabdellah called for avoiding actions that could create division and conflict between the Moroccan and Spanish peoples. Mohamed Ouzzine, secretary-general of the Popular Movement, demanded an official apology for the flag incident and raised what he called Morocco’s legitimate historic rights at a rally in Salé, near Rabat.

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The issue is not temporary or an electoral card. It is deeply rooted in the consciousness of Moroccans and will remain present in national memory and on the country’s political agenda.

Ouzzine said the issue was not a temporary matter or merely an electoral card. He described it as deeply rooted in Moroccan consciousness, national memory and the country’s political agenda.

Driss Lachgar, first secretary of the Socialist Union of Popular Forces, rejected that tone and called for responsibility to prevent relations with Spain from deteriorating. He noted that Spain was the first European country to recognize Morocco’s autonomy proposal for Western Sahara. “There is no interest for our country in placing ourselves in a position of confrontation or in taking up the defense of the positions of Spain’s far right,” Lachgar said at a rally in Rabat. His remarks came a week after Istiqlal leader Nizar Baraka, a government coalition member and minister of equipment and water, described Spain as a fundamental partner.

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There is no interest for our country in placing ourselves in a position of confrontation or in taking up the defense of the positions of Spain’s far right.