How will Óscar Puente get out of this one?

BarcelonaTwo railway accidents in Spain in the same year that add up to more than 100 deaths are "unacceptable". The assessment was made this Wednesday by the President of the Spanish Government, Pedro Sánchez, after the tragedy in Toledo. Under normal circumstances, an "unacceptable" event should lead to significant decisions. And, just as it happened after the Adamuz accident, all eyes are once again focused on the Minister of Transport, Óscar Puente, who for now has no intention of resigning. "I am not thinking about myself", he explained this Wednesday to guarantee that he is totally focused on "clarifying the facts and trying to resolve the situation". How will he get out of this?

In a moment of mourning and when there are still many questions to answer, the minister rushed, just a few hours after the accident, to point out the culprit: the Adif operator who gave the order to resume "normal operation" to the AVE train driver. The investigation has just begun and the judge has already prohibited access to the accident site. If it is a "human error", as Puente made sure to repeat, the responsibilities are limited to the person who committed it. To reinforce this version in the eyes of the public, in the evening, three audio recordings of the conversations between the operator in question and the drivers of the two trains that would end up colliding were leaked toEl País, la SER and Eldiario, three audio recordings of the conversations between the operator in question and the drivers of the two trains that would end up colliding.

The operator's decision, Puente explained during the day, was "inexplicable". But many questions remain to be answered. For example, how is it possible that when the track safety system fails, the decision rests exclusively with an operator at the Madrid command center, who does not even know the real-time location of the trains? What failed on the Iryo train so that it did not resume its journey when the AVE was approaching from behind? Or how is it possible that no one at the control center realized that the impact was imminent, even though seventeen minutes had passed since the AVE driver was authorized to continue on their way?

What is ruled out is that after this accident there will be a few days of political truce like those that occurred after the one in Adamuz. With elections around the corner, the PP was also quick to demand explanations and call for accountability. It did so, for example, in a tweet, in capital letters, quite explicit: "ENOUGH IS ENOUGH". Vox did not hesitate, and as the list of fatalities grew, it announced a lawsuit against Adif and blamed the "criminal organization" that, according to Santiago Abascal, is the Spanish government for all the deaths. The far right was the only one that did not suspend its pre-campaign events.

The newspaper archive as a weapon

Immediately, the networks began to fill up with Puente's personal newspaper archive. From his proposal—already surpassed—to bring high-speed rail up to 350 kilometers per hour; to his statements a few months ago remarking that "the railway system is reliable and safe"; or, after the Adamuz accident, highlighting that "the probability that another accident of these characteristics will occur is very low, very, very low." This Wednesday, they even reproached the minister that, when he had already been warned about the accident, he published a tweet in support of Lula ridiculing Bolsonaro. After this tweet, he only made two more all day, both to emphasize that he had been on the front line.

The minister's communication strategy will now be the same as it was a few months ago: many appearances, many details, many answers, many promises, and always demonstrating his maximum involvement in resolving the crisis. In fact, it is even probable that the first version he has struggled to give will end up being the one that explains the cause of what happened this Wednesday on the Madrid-Seville high-speed line. And yet, in one year Spain has suffered two "unacceptable" accidents.

Puente has been one of Sánchez's main defenders this term. But the 68 dead and more than 50 injured in Toledo may be too heavy a burden to continue accompanying him from now on. For the moment, he remains a minister and is the PSOE candidate on November 29th for Valladolid.