The control session of the Plenary of the Madrid Assembly this Thursday was marked by clashes between the regional president, Isabel Díaz Ayuso, and the left-wing groups, with the resignation of the former Minister of Transport Óscar Puente after the railway tragedy in Urda as one of the main axes of the debate.
The discussion took place in a context of strong political confrontation, with constant references to the victims of the accident, the management of railway infrastructure, and the political responsibilities derived from various catastrophes, from nursing homes during the pandemic to the accidents in Adamuz and Urda.
The PSOE vindicates Óscar Puente and attacks Ayuso
The spokesperson for the PSOE in the Madrid Assembly, Mar Espinar, has defended that Óscar Puente resigned after the railway tragedy in Urda “without legal fault and broken with grief,” while accusing the regional president of still not taking responsibility for “the victims of nursing homes.”
Espinar has maintained that the PP has “reduced railway investment by 60%” while giving lessons “on infrastructure management,” and has placed the popular party at the head of catastrophes such as “11M, the Prestige, the DANA, or the nursing homes.”
“Mr. Puente has left without legal fault, assuming the political responsibility of a country like Spain and giving all explanations. He has left broken by the pain of the victims, and you are still here, Mrs. Ayuso, possibly with criminal responsibilities and with all political responsibility,” she stated.
The socialist spokesperson also reproached the regional president for not having given “any explanation” and for not having “faced the pain of the victims of the nursing homes.” Despite this, she assured that the polls “will put her in her place” and asked Ayuso to resign.
“The same strength of the people who won in Brazil, who won in the United States, and who will win on November 29 in Spain. Don't make the people of Madrid wait until May, because change in Madrid is unstoppable. Do just one thing for this Community and resign,” she emphasized.
Ayuso accuses Pedro Sánchez's Government
In response, Isabel Díaz Ayuso stated that “everything Sánchez touches” ends up “condemned, indicted, resigned, or sunk in the polls.” She also questioned the presence of socialist leaders at the upcoming funeral in Toledo.
“Will they go to the Toledo funeral? Will all those who lecture us go to the Toledo funeral? Of course not, because obviously we are not all the same. And much less the same as the socialists,” she concluded.
For the same reason, the regional president asked why Pedro Sánchez does not resign after “two railway tragedies” —Adamuz and Urda— while the left has highlighted the resignation of former Minister of Transport Óscar Puente in contrast to Ayuso's reaction after the deaths in nursing homes during Covid-19.
In her speech, she also pointed out that the Urda accident took place last week, with 69 people dead.
“If Mazón resigns for being president and I should resign because they feel like it, why not Sánchez? When there have been two tragedies on tracks that don't even happen in the most underdeveloped third-world countries, two accidents with so many human losses in one year,” she launched.
Immediately afterwards, Ayuso positioned Pedro Sánchez as the “direct responsible” for having appointed people who “have spent money on prostitution, placing lovers and placing party activists against technical criteria,” and added that “8 out of every 10 euros go to the State” for them to “waste it.”
Furthermore, she remarked: “On what? We don't know. Certainly not on trains,” while regretting that the left is “so miserable” for bringing up the issue of nursing homes after more than a hundred deaths in railway accidents and 30 million euros in commercial losses in Puerta del Sol due to the encampment.
Ayuso also cited that in Spain, between 120,000 and 150,000 people would have died due to her management of the pandemic, that of (Pedro) Sánchez, and pointed out: “And still years later they come to talk to us about nursing homes because they have no dignity.”
Ayuso addresses the victims of Urda
During her speech, the regional president began by expressing her “deep sorrow” for those who died in the “terrible accident” in Urda, which occurred on a Madrid-Seville route.
“From Madrid, we share their pain, also for the loss of former minister and our colleague Fátima Báñez,” she noted. Ayuso also acknowledged the “solidarity and dedication” of the residents of Toledo and the emergency and health services of the three “most affected” autonomous communities, namely, Castilla-La Mancha, Madrid, and Andalusia.
The regional leader also defended her Government's commitment to infrastructure safety and stressed that 52% of the Madrid Metro budget is allocated to maintenance.
“That which does not give votes, which is maintenance, which is necessary to avoid these catastrophes,” she said.
Vox calls Puente "butcher" of Urda and Adamuz
The spokesperson for Vox, Isabel Pérez Moñino, raised the tone by calling Óscar Puente the “butcher of Urda and Adamuz,” and reproached that, after 115 deaths, the PSOE dedicates itself to congratulating the former minister for his “dignity, his responsibility, and his political stature.”
“Óscar Puente does not resign out of dignity, he does not resign out of responsibility, and much less does he resign out of respect for the victims. He resigns because Pedro Sánchez's electoral calculations tell him that keeping him in government harms the PSOE,” she maintained.
Moñino insisted that Puente “is not leaving for being directly responsible for too many deaths,” but because for Pedro Sánchez “keeping him in power costs too many votes.” In her opinion, the Government is now trying to present the resignation as “a heroic act.”
“The butcher of Urda and Adamuz leaves, but Pedro Sánchez remains entrenched in La Moncloa. All of you and all Spaniards must be very clear that Vox will not accept that they turn 115 deaths into a image-washing operation to refloat the true responsible, the number one, Pedro Sánchez,” she concluded.
Más Madrid demands accountability and recalls the nursing homes
In Más Madrid's turn, spokesperson Manuela Bergerot questioned why Ayuso does not apply “the same yardstick” in the face of tragedies and stressed that Óscar Puente did resign.
“Puente has resigned. When will one of you resign? You do not assume responsibilities when you are directly responsible,” she snapped.
Bergerot recalled that former Generalitat president Carlos Mazón remained in office a year after the DANA and is still a deputy. Furthermore, she denounced that “those responsible for the protocols of shame have been promoted.”
“You have spent your whole lives rewarding negligence and playing politics with people's pain. Mr. Ayuso, you decided to remain in office after allowing 7,291 elderly people to die without care. You cannot give us a single lesson,” she concluded.
