Óscar Puente attacks the PP for sowing doubts about the postal vote: "You have to be very evil or very ignorant"

The Minister of Transport, Óscar Puente, responded this Tuesday to the suspicions of electoral fraud launched after the call for the general elections on November 29. In an interview on 'Malas Lenguas', on TVE, he accused the PP of sowing doubts about postal voting despite having won elections and governing institutions with the same system it now questions. "You have to be very evil or very ignorant," he stated.

Puente directed his criticism at Isabel Díaz Ayuso, who on Monday asked citizens not to vote by mail and this Tuesday reaffirmed her recommendation to go to the polls. The leader of the far-right Vox, Santiago Abascal, has also encouraged in-person voting while expressing his distrust of the process. Neither has provided evidence that postal voting in the upcoming elections is being manipulated.

"The electoral fraud thing is absolutely indescribable from a democratic point of view," the minister denounced. He recalled that the PP governs, according to the figures he cited, in more than 3,300 city councils, 28 provincial councils, and 11 autonomous communities. He then wondered why its leaders are now casting suspicion on a voting method also present in the elections that gave them those victories.

Ayuso insists while the PP leadership defends guarantees

The words of the Madrid president have opened a contradiction within her own party. Borja Sémper, national spokesperson for the PP, has described postal voting as a "guaranteeing" system and has asked Spaniards to vote both in person and by mail. Ayuso, on the other hand, has again recommended this Tuesday that everyone go "to the ballot box" and has maintained her accusations about the alleged "tricks" of the President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez.

The procedure allows checking who requests the documentation, to whom it is delivered, and who deposits the vote at Correos. The Electoral Census Office records the request to prevent that person from also voting in person. The voter must identify themselves when handing in their envelope and, on election day, the polling station verifies their registration before introducing the sealed ballot into the ballot box. The Central Electoral Board supervises the process and includes eight magistrates from the Supreme Court among its members.

The PSOE has reacted by disseminating information on how to vote by mail on 29N in contrast to messages that discourage its use. Its spokesperson, Montse Mínguez, has also asked the leader of the PP, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, to disauthorize Ayuso for questioning the cleanliness of the procedure before the polls open.

Puente believes that this controversy is displacing the discussion about housing, after PP, Vox, and Junts voted against the government's decrees on Friday. The minister has accused the popular party of "muddying the playing field" to avoid talking about rents and evictions. The dispute over postal voting has thus occupied one of the first days of the pre-campaign, just as the deadline to request it has already opened.