By Lamine Ghanmi LAAYOUNE, Western Sahara, June 11 (Reuters) - When a speaker told a rally in this city that Morocco had changed, dozens of people held up mobile phones so their friends and relatives in refugee camps over the border in Algeria could listen. Western Sahara, a tract of desert the size of Britain, has been the scene of Africa's longest-running territorial dispute since colonial power Spain left in 1975 and Morocco annexed it. The Polisario independence movement, backed by Algeria, took up arms against Moroccan forces. Despite a 1991 ceasefire, thousands of people remain in desert camps in Algeria and attempts to solve the dispute are deadlocked. But supporters of Morocco's reform-minded ruler, King Mohammed, believe that by spreading a message of a new, more tolerant Morocco, they can drain support away from Polisario and force its leaders to accept a compromise. "Our sisters and brothers in the camps in Algeria are listening now," Mohamed Sheikh Biadillah, Secretary-General of Morocco's Authenticity and Modernity Party (PAM), made up of supporters of the King, told the crowd in Laayoune. "We affirm to them that the Morocco of King Mohammed has changed. It has got rid of its dark past of repression and injustice," said Biadillah. He was the founder of Polisario but withdrew from it in the early 1970s. He still has relatives in the camps. Biadillah has since been part of Morocco's establishment, having held top government positions including health minister. "FORCING A COMPROMISE" No country has recognised Morocco's sovereignty over Western Sahara and its estimated 400,000 people. Morocco has offered limited autonomy -- a proposal backed by France, Spain and the United States -- but Polisario has rejected that. The territory has reserves of phosphates, used in fertiliser, and though Polisario has never espoused radical Islam, Western Sahara lies in a wider Sahara region which has become an operating base for Islamist militants. The local elections are taking place in Western Sahara as well as in other parts of Morocco on Friday as Morocco sees Western Sahara as part of its territory. Biadillah and other party officials criss-crossed Western Sahara this week to rally support for the group's candidates in the local elections. The party's objectives though, go beyond that vote. "If PAM's support grows enough here, the Polisario leadership would be forced to reach a compromise with Morocco," said Mohamed Reguibi, who said he had been a Polisario member before becoming an activist with Biadillah's party. Rights campaigners in Morocco and abroad agree that King Mohammed has improved his country's human rights record since 1999 when he succeeded his late father Hassan. But rights groups accuse Moroccan police of beating pro-independence demonstrators in Western Sahara and sometimes torturing people in their custody. Morocco denies the accusations. Ali Salem Essalek, a pro-Polisario activist, said Polisario supporters did not believe in Biadillah's message, and would be boycotting Friday's local election as illegitimate. "They are talking about change but the reality in Western Sahara is different as repression and rights abuses are widespread," he said. "WINDS OF CHANGE" Fouad Ali Himma, a close friend of the King and his former top security adviser, is a top PAM figure and addressed its rallies in Western Sahara. His association has prompted speculation -- repeatedly denied -- that it is "the party of the king". The party had supported the governing coalition until it walked out last month, when it said it was going into opposition to the government. Crowds at the rallies greeted speakers with the chants "Long Live the King" and "Oumma (the community) welcomes Ali Himma". Party leaders and activists lambasted rights abuses and official corruption: a message aimed at convincing the people of Western Sahara, known as Sahrawis, that they do not need independence because Morocco is changing. "The winds of change will reach Laayoune, Boujdour and all other cities here in the Sahara to wipe out the mafias of cheating and corruption who want to divide Moroccan ranks to keep the people down and poor," Biadillah told a rally at Boujdour, on Western Sahara's Atlantic coast. Some Sahrawis were receptive. Mohamed Bousoula, a 50-year-old bricklayer in Boujdour, alleged that local officials siphoned off subsidised goods intended for the poor. "Officials like Himma with influence in Rabat can change the situation here. I and my family will vote for their people here," he said. Others were sceptical. "We keep asking the same question: 'Why do the authorities suspect us and see us as different from Moroccans in other regions'," said a rights activist who said he belonged to no political party but did not want to be named. (Editing by Giles Elgood)
Supporters of the Popular Movement (PM) hold up t-shirt with a portrait of their candidate Omar Bahraoui during a campaign rally in Rabat June 10, 2009. Local government elections in Morocco ...
