Yes, they are different Carlos Mazón and Óscar Puente

BarcelonaIt has been a year since Carlos Mazón last spoke at the Valencian Courts. He did so for the last time a few days after his resignation as president to explain himself, "at his own request," before the commission of inquiry opened due to the DANA, which in October 2024 caused 237 deaths. Since then, he has basically dedicated himself to voting on the scheduled days (the PSPV claims that in one year he has only attended the Courts nineteen times) and to continuing to collect his salary as a deputy with the added bonuses for exclusive dedication, travel allowances (even though he has an official car for being a former president), and serving as the PP spokesperson in a commission, the regulation committee, which has not met even once during the entire term. This amounts to more than 60,000 euros, which also carries judicial immunity, preventing the judge investigating the negligence during the DANA from investigating him.

Why are we writing about Mazón today? Because this week marks one year since he stopped being president, but, above all, because the train accident in Urda and the resignation of Óscar Puente provide an opportunity for comparison. "Not all politicians are the same," declared the now former Minister of Transport when he announced he was stepping down. More than 100 deaths in two high-speed rail accidents in 2026 (and another in Gelida with the death of a Rodalies train driver) have been "unacceptable," as the Spanish President, Pedro Sánchez, said a few days earlier.

The resignation caught many off guard, because Puente himself had said he was not considering it and, in fact, had explained that he maintained all of Sánchez's confidence. From the first moment, the executive had tried hard to point to human error – even though the minister did not utter those words – as the reason for the crash between the trains. But it was pouring on wet ground, and with an electoral campaign on the horizon, the presence of Puente –like that of Montse Mínguez, whom no one remembers anymore, a few weeks earlier– was a burden the PSOE could not afford. Puente is stepping down as minister and also as a candidate.

The comparison

The justice system will determine if either of the two is responsible. The first comparison between Puente and Mazón is, therefore, that one resigned from all his positions and the other, when it was already unsustainable for him to continue, remained clinging to his seat. It is true that Puente did not make the same decision after the Adamuz accident in January. The second comparison is that while one extended lunch by four hours when the alert was already at its maximum, lied repeatedly to justify his decision, and avoided giving explanations to the media, the other has spent the last two weeks—as he did in Adamuz—answering questions. And the third one is brought to us directly by the newspaper archives. The PP has demanded Puente's dismissal from the very first moment, and ignores what it did with Mazón. Now Alberto Núñez Feijóo says that he was "critical" of the former Valencian president, when back then he applauded him, hugged him, and congratulated him: "We are proud that you continue working and stepping up," he told Mazón three months after the tragedy.

The details of the week

For everything to turn out as he had planned, Óscar Puente opted for colored folders in his appearance on Tuesday at Congress. In the white one, he had the documentation regarding the investigation into the train accident in Toledo. And in the red one, which he took out after putting down his mobile phone – it is said that it was then that he wrote to Pedro Sánchez – he carried his resignation speech written down.

Last Tuesday, on the Television of Galicia news broadcast, they mistook a breaking news story that, theoretically, came from a message on Adif's social media. The presenter explained repeatedly that two trains had just collided in Urda and that railway traffic was interrupted. It took them a few minutes to realize they were referring to the accident from a week ago.