“Well, come on, Carlos, let's give it a little more rhythm.” Pedro Sánchez was launched two weeks ago when he posted a video on his social networks with Carlos Body in the pasture. The vice president trotted back: “Whatever it takes, you know.” The message was to travel together for “four more (years)”, not the assumption of Transport powers after the Urda tragedy and the resignation of Óscar Puente. Public management is a long-distance race full of obstacles and Corps is the best dressing for the umpteenth socialist wound of an agonizing legislature.
The Urda accident, with 69 fatalities, was as unaffordable for the Spanish railway system as the continuity of the minister. If the president admits the loss of confidence in high speed - we don't even talk about Rodalies - he also assumed by default the loss of confidence in his manager. However, the great political value of Puente – a big game game – bogged down damage control. Until the minister decided on Tuesday to leave the president with a WhatsApp message and open the red folder in which his epitaph was written.
Puente not only resigned as a permanent member of Congress. He gave Sánchez a new opportunity. His unexpected resignation and against the president's criteria is as painful for the socialists' strategy as it is soothing. A resignation due to political responsibility where no one resigns is an electoral asset that Sánchez exploited yesterday in Valencia. The president loses a faithful squire, a firewall and an agitator of militancy, but he returned to the race poking around where it hurts the PP the most. The popular spokesperson, Ester Muñoz, delved into the wounds of the victims, and Puente ended up relegating her from protagonist to troupe.
Puente resigns “out of dignity” and allows Sánchez the praise: “What is relevant is that he has been with the victims from the first minute, showing his face with total transparency and providing solutions with technical rigor.” On the other side, the socialists and Puente himself place Carlos Mazón, former Valencian president, during the management of the dana. “I was breaking the bank,” Puente said. Mazón resigned a year after the tragedy, he is still working in the Valencian Courts, he has a driver and a secretary...
The PSOE has lost two catalysts of the disaffected electorate such as Puente and José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, and returns the campaign to the classics: the comparison of models, management and response to corruption and catastrophes. And with Vice President Corps in the task of returning the railway system to comparable trust standards, the PP can only play fronton.
Body is immune to attacks from the right. He is the highest-rated member of the Government since July 2024, and the PP ignored him until he was promoted to the vice presidency. Then, the popular ones accused him of complicit silence with the corruption that is being investigated around the PSOE. Ester Muñoz and Jaime de Olano failed again and again. Melee is impossible. The interpretive skills of the PP spokesperson collide with the immutable story of Body of Data and Values. The vice president is not a member of the PSOE, he was offered to go on the list for Badajoz and he rejected it, he will not make a mistake at a rally or on social networks...
Puente handed in his resignation so that the PSOE could regain momentum. The PP resisted erasing the Ceuta crisis from the electoral equation after the eviction of Maricarmen, which led to the electoral call. And now he does not want to corner Urda's tragedy in the face of the reborn murmur of “yes we can” after Lula's victory in Brazil and the Democratic tsunami against Donald Trump. Alberto Núñez Feijóo has not fallen into stridency and has prioritized the institutional profile, while Vox complies with the ultra script. But he needs to link Sánchez's image with the tragedy.
