Political responsibility for the Adamuz tragedy is confirmed, and Óscar Puente is distracted

Tomorrow will mark two months since the Adamuz (Cordoba) train accident, which caused the death of 46 people.

Pedro Sánchez usa el 'no a la guerra' para tapar un caos ferroviario que va en aumento
Oscar Puente's tricks in dismissing two true news stories about Adamuz as 'hoaxes'

Two months have passed and there have been no resignations among the political figures responsible for the deplorable state of the Spanish rail network. It's worth recalling that the day after the tragedy, a broken track was discovered as a possible cause of the Iryo train derailment, which in turn caused a Renfe Alvia train to derail. This information was published by Reuters. Although the Minister of Transport, the Socialist Óscar Puente, had announced that he would provide "as much information as possible", his Ministry declined to comment on the Reuters report.

Let us remember that two days after the accident, on January 20, the government of Pedro Sánchez began to warn about "fake news". The next day, on January 21, in the midst of a distraction campaign, a pro-government media outlet targeted a train driver for reporting incidents, information that had to be leaked from the Ministry and which even indicated the line that this employee covered. On January 25, Óscar Puente called a news report in the newspaper El Mundo about a broken track a "hoax." The report stated: "The exact point of the rail break is the welding of renewed rails to old ones." The news was entirely true.

In fact, yesterday the Railway Accident Investigation Commission (CIAF) confirmed that the track had been broken since the night before the accident. The report confirms what El Mundo published about the break at the welding point between an old and a new rail. A few hours after the accident, Minister Puente had said that it took place on "a completely renovated track." It was a lie.

So, we have a Minister of Transport who lied to cover up the government's responsibility for this accident, since ADIF, the company in charge of maintaining the railway network, is state-owned and reports to the Ministry of Transport. Now that political responsibility for this tragedy has been confirmed, what has Puente said about it? Nothing. Here you can see his tweets from yesterday. The minister was too busy all day attacking the opposition and talking about the results of the regional elections in Castile and León to address matters within his purview.

Óscar Puente should have resigned or been dismissed as soon as it was confirmed that he had lied about the railway line's renovation, a lie exposed on January 25th by the news published in El Mundo, which the minister also lied about by calling a "hoax." Two months later, he remains in his post and focused on what he enjoys most: posting tweets. If he's still there, it's, of course, because the Prime Minister decided to maintain his confidence in him. Pedro Sánchez is responsible for Puente, a lying and incompetent minister, not having assumed any responsibility for what happened. Thus, responsibility for this tragedy becomes shared between the Prime Minister and the Minister.

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Photo: Efe. Pedro Sánchez, President of the Government of Spain, with Óscar Puente, Minister of Transport.