Bewilderment takes hold of the PSOE: "We need a few days to digest it"

MadridFor some time now, it has been said that Spanish politics is immersed in a state of "bated breath." The reason: sudden events, some even difficult to believe or accept, that cause a 180-degree turn in the public agenda. The latest, the train accident in Urda, in the province of Toledo, which has so far left 69 people dead. The difference from other moments is that the accident catches the Spanish government and the PSOE in the middle of the electoral pre-campaign. And even though there is still a month left before the state elections, the magnitude of the tragedy is a blow that is difficult to absorb. Pedro Sánchez's political strategy is also forced to change completely.

In the socialist ranks, there is an atmosphere of "sorrow, pain, and anger," points out a source close to the party, who adds that the expectation of a comeback for November 29th may have been left definitively "shattered." Now, the PSOE is giving itself a few days of leeway to digest this blow. To respect, "scrupulously," the mourning and pain resulting from the accident. Everything is at a standstill—it is "inevitable," they repeat at Moncloa—and the perspective is not to get the campaign back on track until after next week's event: the XXX Ibero-American Summit of Heads of State and Government. Two days marked by institutional acts and the presence of leaders in Madrid.

Before the accident, and already immersed in the electoral pre-campaign, the PSOE had been coming off a few days in which the public narrative seemed to be starting to smile upon it. It had begun to hint at a strategy similar to that of the 2023 general elections: to think that four more years at Moncloa are a fact, and not a utopia; and to address not only its militants or an adult population, but also a younger population. Sánchez thus shows up on David Broncano's program La Revuelta on TVE. But also on the feminist podcast Keep it Cutre created seven years ago by Angela Henche and Albanta San Román, when they were twenty years old. Furthermore, Moncloa had also confirmed the Spanish president's visit to the podcast The Wild Project: behind it is a youtuber with millions of followers, among whom young men stand out.

Regarding the substance, Sánchez had begun to play the card of emotions as a lever for mobilization. For example, the socialists had managed to include on the front pages of the main newspapers the kiss between Sánchez and Begoña Gómez, and the slogan "the power of love". Also the idea of the good people –the PSOE and the coalition government– against the bad people –the PP and Vox–. The train accident, however, puts an abrupt end to any festive discourse and also forces us to set aside banalities. Instead, it may precipitate the other leg that Sánchez is playing: a campaign based on material and concrete things, in the style of Zohran Mamdani: minimum wage, pensions, aid, rent regulation...

In the PP, they were beginning to suffer with some of the debates that were being put on the table and that managed to eclipse problematic and uncomfortable issues for the PSOE, such as the migration crisis in Ceuta in which more than a hundred people lost their lives, or the problem of access to housing –the defeat in Congress after the no from Junts to the housing decrees did, in fact, precipitate the early election.

The populars' balancing act with the pension system and its privatization, the possibility of reforming the abortion law or the euthanasia law, as Alberto Núñez Feijóo hinted, or questioning Catalan in schools had opened a window of opportunity for the PSOE to contrast a model of guaranteed rights, which they consider they represent, with the model of regression, in the socialists' view, of a PP increasingly cornered by Vox.

Necessary changes

At the Moncloa they cling to the fact that citizens "judge what they see in front of them". While the PP and Vox show "insolvency and lack of capacity", they say, Pedro Sánchez demonstrates the capacity for management and for solving problems. To "rebuild", they say at the Spanish executive branch, drawing a parallel with the DANA in the Valencian Community. "What is expected is that we work and rise to the occasion", they argue. They even believe that if the PP enters into the dynamic of the political use of pain and victims, it will be making a mistake. And here enters a key figure: Óscar Puente.

One of the heavyweights of the Spanish government and a veteran Sanchista, also one of the most political profiles despite holding a technical ministry, has been affected by the railway tragedy. Despite the pressure from some voices calling for his resignation, Pedro Sánchez has conveyed his confidence to him. In fact, at the Moncloa they believe that Puente symbolizes, precisely, this idea of reconstruction. However, there is a leap from that to having a relevant role during the electoral campaign. No one overlooks the fact that he is the ultimate person responsible, precisely, for the management of the railway network in the State, where the socialists have boasted of having invested like never before. Spending more, however, is one thing, and managing is another, and Sánchez himself has acknowledged that the reputation of trains in Spain is damaged. Internally, there are some voices in the socialist ranks who believe that it is an "error" that political responsibilities are not being purged.

Be that as it may, there are many days left until the elections and, despite the shock over the accident in Toledo, the "worry" installed in Spanish politics has not disappeared. Once the days of official mourning pass, the parties' dynamics around the tragedy will come into play, but also, and more than ever, other external factors: from the tailwinds of the elections in Brazil, with a surprising victory for Lula, to the mid-term elections in the United States, Donald Trump's first acid test.