Beatriz Corredor, the former Socialist Minister of Housing in love with Gaudí

MadridThis Monday's massive blackout has put Beatriz Corredor (Madrid, 1968), president of Red Eléctrica, in the spotlight. Social media has been filled with calls for her resignation and messages questioning her suitability due to the fact that, when Sánchez's administration appointed her in 2020, she had no prior experience in the energy sector. Her professional career is related to the real estate sector, and in statements on a specialized radio program before making the leap to the listed company, she declared herself "in love" with Gaudí's Casa Batlló and a lover of New York City. Corredor has been a registered property registrar since 1993 and was Minister of Housing under José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero from 2008 to 2010, at the height of the real estate bubble.

And that period was not without controversy either. The press archives, as has been the case with this crisis, are hounding her with some reproach for having repeatedly declared that it was "the right time" to buy a home while eviction figures were rising to record levels. This time, her detractors have circulated a video of her statements made in November 2021 on Antena 3, in which she flatly ruled out the possibility of an episode like the one experienced five days ago occurring in Spain. "We have an electrical system that is the best in the world," she stated. She repeated this on Wednesday on Cadena SER in her first public statements after the blackout, almost 48 hours later.

The PP, Vox, and groups from the plurinational majority such as ERC and Junts are demanding that she provide explanations to Congress. This is not an unfamiliar scenario for Corredor, who was a PSOE MP for a brief period in the previous legislature. A law graduate from the Autonomous University of Madrid in 1991 (although in her youth she wanted to be a doctor), the party appointed her as president of the Justice Committee. She left her seat shortly after, the month before taking over as president of the electricity grid operator. At that time, she also held the presidency of the Pablo Iglesias Foundation, linked to the PSOE (Spanish Socialist Workers' Party), which she joined in 2018, replacing another of the right's favorite Turkish bosses: the president of the Center for Sociological Research, José Félix Tezanos.