Morocco takes its Sahara coalition to the UN: five maps show who stands where

Morocco goes before the UN General Assembly on Tuesday with far more governments behind its autonomy plan than when it first offered the proposal in 2007, and with the UN already packing up in Laayoune after Russia’s October 30 veto of an American resolution that drew 11 votes in favor and three abstentions.

The Assembly cannot undo that veto, but it puts all 193 governments on the record and not just the Council’s 15. Russia will speak first, and dozens more will follow, each choosing how plainly to repeat in New York what many have already told Rabat in bilateral talks.

Forty-one delegations took the floor at the most recent annual session in November 2025, four of them speaking for groups of states.

Abdelwahab El Kaine, president of Africa Watch, told Hespress AR that the session lets Rabat see where alliances stand, among states that criticize the veto, as France does, and those that “prefer not to declare a clear position.”

A Hespress English mapping places 128 UN members in a broad category of support for Morocco’s sovereignty claim, its autonomy initiative or both.

What comes next

The Royal Cabinet said within hours of the vote on October 30 that a 35-year chapter had ended, and that the non-renewal should lead to the Sahara’s removal from the Security Council’s agenda and the suspension of the UN-led political process.

The UN, through Spokesman Stéphane Dujarric said de Mistura remains the Secretary-General’s envoy and is working from Brussels, and that senior appointments will depend on the incoming Secretary-General’s choices. Peacekeeping chief Jean-Pierre Lacroix said on November 4 that the withdrawal, including positions east of the sand berm, could take up to two months.

King Mohammed VI assigned the Interior Ministry to coordinate the exit and ordered civilian and military authorities to uphold the ceasefire, which the Royal Cabinet called a voluntary obligation that “will not change” with the mission.

Julian Harston, who once led the mission wrote that MINURSO is anachronistic and that a referendum was never realistic, accusing Algeria of obstructing a settlement. His case was that the international support Morocco’s autonomy plan has gathered should now be reflected in the UN’s own position, which is the question the General Assembly’s speakers will answer, one government at a time, later today.