The resignation this Tuesday of Óscar Puente as Minister of Transport was a turn more typical of Pedro Sánchez and that came almost at ten at night, after almost five hours of appearance in Congress and, above all, six days after the train accident in Urda and after a week of doubts, pressure and support for him to leave or continue in office. All this despite the fact that, as he said last night, visibly moved, the decision had been made on the morning of the accident, when he was driving by car to the Adif control center after the train crash that had occurred shortly before nine in the morning.
This story contrasts with the versions and sensations that since last Wednesday there have been in the PSOE and in the Government about what Puente should and could do to overcome this new great crisis in which he has finally opted for resignation. "A transport minister of a country like Spain cannot continue in his position with two accidents of this severity in one year," he said last night about a reflection that he assured was very clear from minutes after learning about Urda's accident and that he immediately communicated to his family.
Doubts about the continuity of Puente began on the same day, October 28, as the magnitude of the tragedy became known, when from the emergency command post in Urda, to which he had traveled independently of his Minister of Transport, the President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, asserted that this new incident, which occurred nine months after another very serious one, that of Adamuz, was "unaffordable" in Spain and promised to act with "forcefulness."
These words raised doubts about whether on this occasion the strategy that Puente deployed after the Adamuz accident would be valid, which consisted of a display of television interviews and mass press conferences with unlimited questions to provide a cascade of technical data about what happened.
At the same time that a day later, the belief was spreading in the PSOE that the minister could not continue in office after the second accident in nine months, the water level began to rise in the Ministry of Transport. Yes, Puente's resignation was something that Sánchez himself was already considering and no, there were no guarantees that he would end up ruling out the idea of doing without him.
However, everything changed in the early afternoon of day two after the accident. That morning and unexpectedly, Puente had also moved to Urda's command post. Sánchez had already arrived there for the second consecutive day and had made a statement in which he spoke for the first time about the "broken trust" in the High Speed Railway, which not even a year before Puente had claimed was experiencing its "best moment." He said it together with the president of Castilla-La Mancha, Emiliano García Page, in a setting that gave rise to suspicions: Puente did not appear in the photo, in public with them, when he had been at the CECOPI meeting.
The doubts were dispelled upon returning from Toledo. Sánchez and Puente did it in the same car. Just after that trip, the idea began to spread from the Ministry of Transportation that resignation "was not on the table." Not only that, because this guarantee was accompanied by two announcements with which Puente once again took the initiative: an appearance at his own request in the Permanent Deputation of Congress - which was held this Tuesday - and an Adamuz-style press conference in his Ministry the next day.
"Assuming responsibility is showing your face. It was not my duty to be in the command center [of Adif] that Wednesday, but now it is my responsibility to be in command. I am not going to hide behind anyone," Puente said there on Friday, five days before announcing his resignation this Tuesday in Congress and when even the Government's parliamentary partners were already asking for his head, as were PP and Vox. By then, the reflection that was also heard this Tuesday in Congress, from the mouth of the ERC spokesperson, Gabriel Rufián, was already on the surface about what the Government would say if the two railway accidents this year had happened under a PP mandate.
It was Puente himself who closed the door to his resignation on Friday. He did it right after finishing the press conference, when in an informal conversation with journalists he explained that he had put his position at the disposal of the president and that he had not accepted it because it seemed "unfair."
In this way, the Minister of Transportation began the All Saints Bridge in which he traveled along his own path to the cemetery because from that same Saturday the drums began to sound announcing a possible change of opinion in Moncloa. Within the Presidency of the Government the division was evident, with prominent members moving to drop the minister this Wednesday, just one day after approving the measures in the Council of Ministers and spending hours in Congress. In any case and as always throughout this new tragedy, it was supposed to be necessary for Sánchez to lower his finger.
The 'threat' did not materialize, at least until this Tuesday when Puente began the offensive and ended up resigning from his position as minister and as PSOE candidate for Valladolid, just hours after Moncloa ruled out his resignation. "He is not going to resign nor are we going to count him" until the November 29 elections, Monclovite sources assured, adding that the dismissal of the president of Adif, Pedro Marco de la Peña, was not on the table either, after a few days in which it was stated that his resignation was imminent, as a way to also drag Puente.
However, the minister did not expressly expressly state that he was not going to resign. In the press conference after the Council of Ministers he pointed out that the three criteria that from his point of view would justify something like this were not met because he had neither taken nor omitted decisions that caused or could have prevented the Urda accident and because "when I had to respond, I was in my office and showing my face." He said he understood, not shared, the people who "in good faith" ask him to resign, such as the Broad Front candidate for the November 29 elections, Ada Colau. On the contrary, he has assured that he does not have a pass that the claim was made by the PP and its president, Alberto Núñez Feijóo.
Finally, the 'bomb' arrived as part of a plan to counteract the plan in a sector of Moncloa to dismiss him and after five hours of appearance in Congress in which, in addition to the PP and Vox, also the Government partners and parliamentarians of the PSOE asked him to take a step back.
"We ask Minister Puente to provide the necessary information and to resign," said Sumar's spokesperson, Verónica Martínez, before entering, just a few hours after the ministers of this party had shown signs of "support and affection," according to Puente, within the Council of Ministers. "You are a good politician and you show your face" but "someone has to take charge of this," Rufián snapped inside the room. "Mr. Minister, do not cling to what is said to be the confidence of the President of the Government or to your own character and conception of responsibility," emphasized Mikel Legarda, from the PNV and also from the side of parties that the Government has supported in the last legislature.
