Shortly Kenya expressed support for Morocco's autonomy plan for Western Sahara, the Algerian ambassador to Nairobi, Mahi Boumediene, met with Moses Wetangula, Speaker of the Kenyan National Assembly. «This evening, I held a cordial engagement with H.E. Mahi Boumediene, Ambassador of Algeria to Kenya. We discussed shared bilateral interests and explored ways to strengthen parliamentary diplomacy between our two nations», Wetangula wrote on X (formerly Twitter). Moses Wetangula is widely regarded as a key ally of the Polisario Front. A report published in October 2022 by the South African-based Institute for Security Studies (ISS) revealed that Wetangula, a former foreign minister, had persuaded President William Ruto to retract a tweet posted on September 14, 2022, in which Ruto announced the severing of diplomatic ties with the «Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic» (SADR). Wetangula is a prominent figure in Kenya's political landscape. He is the leader of FORD Kenya, a party within the Kenya Kwanza coalition that supported Ruto's successful presidential bid in August 2022. A few weeks after the meeting on January 26, 2023, in Dakar between Moroccan Prime Minister Aziz Akhannouch and President Ruto, Wetangula traveled to Algeria, where he met with President Abdelmadjid Tebboune and reaffirmed his support for the Polisario. Wetangula publicly reiterated this stance following the signing of the «Tangier Appeal» in November 2023—an initiative by several African political figures calling for the expulsion of the «SADR» from the African Union—during a meeting with the Polisario representative in Nairobi. «I assured him of the importance of keeping the Sahrawi Republic on the AU agenda» and its «membership in the African Union», he emphasized.
