Dakhla (Refugee Camps), July 9, 2016 (SPS) - Ibrahim Ghali was elected Saturday in the Wilaya of Dakhla, Sahrawi refugee camps, by an overwhelming majority the Secretary General of the Polisario Front and President of the Sahrawi Republic as required by the Constitution, during the works of the Extraordinary Congress of the Polisario Front.
Candidate Ibrahim Ghali obtained 1766 from 1895 of votes cast, according to the announcement of the Election Committee after counting the final results.
Ibrahim Ghali was born on 19 August 1949 in Smara town. He joined the movement against Spanish colonialism led by late Mohamed Ibrahim Basiri.
He is one of the founders of the Polisario Front, and he was elected the first Secretary General of the Polisario Front during its first Congress May 10, 1973. He led the first military operation against the Spanish colonization, which was the first spark of the declaration of the armed struggle on May 20, 1973.
He was appointed Minister of Defense in the first Sahrawi government in March 1976 until 1989.
He was elected in the Executive Committee of the Polisario Front during the Third Congress in 1976 until the Eighth Congress in 1989, then a member of the National Secretariat of the Polisario Front during the Ninth Congress in 1999 until 14th Congress in 2015.
He was the commander of the Second Military Regiment from 1989 to 1993. He was the Minister of Defense from 1993 to 1998. He was appointed the Minister of the occupied Territories from 1998 to 1999.
From 1999 to 2004, he was the representative of the Polisario Front in Spain. In 2008, he was appointed an ambassador extraordinary and plenipotentiary to the People's Democratic Republic of Algeria.
In January 2016, he was appointed in charge of Secretariat of Political Organization of the Polisario Front, a position he held until his election the Secretary General of the Polisario Front and President of the Sahrawi Republic on July 9, 2016.
Ibrahim Ghali is the third Secretary General of the Polisario Front, following the two martyrs, El-Wali Mustafa Sayed and Mohamed Abdelaziz. (SPS)
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