The president of the Government of Aragon and PP leader in the Community, Jorge Azcón, has denounced that the Administrator of Railway Infrastructures (Adif), dependent on the Ministry of Transport, has not only become a politicized body, but has also been used to place “Ábalos’s friends.”
Azcón appeared before the media together with the Zaragoza intermodal station, backed by the head of the Congress list for Zaragoza, Rocío Dívar; the mayor of the Aragon capital, Natalia Chueca; and the provincial president of the PP of Zaragoza, Ramón Celma.
In his remarks, he lamented that “what was supposed to work with absolute normality, as it has worked for so many years, today, unfortunately, is at the center of the debate due to mismanagement and the bribes from the Socialist Government, a Government that has devoted itself to demagoguery and populism instead of trains, and that has consequences.”
He accused the central Executive of having turned Adif into a focus of corruption: “A Socialist Government that has devoted itself to putting its hand in the till, also in Adif, and unfortunately that has dramatic consequences, disastrous consequences for our country.”
According to Azcón, the behavior of the head of the Government is at the origin of these problems: “If Pedro Sánchez is permanently focused on surviving, if Pedro Sánchez only thinks about himself and about continuing to sleep in the Moncloa, then everyone around him thinks about what they can take from the Spanish people, what bribe, what corruption, what they are going to manage to profit personally by committing crimes.”
The popular leader has emphasized that the deterioration of the rail system has a human and reputational cost: the result “is of human victims, but also of international discredit” of the rail system, he stated, underlining “the general impoverishment of our society.” He stressed that “it is not normal that in 10 months, in 3 rail accidents, 116 people, men and women, have lost their lives.”
Azcón has insisted that "this does not happen in any other country in Europe, in any other developed country in the world" and has criticized that "no one has the railway network, the normal operation of trains as one of the most important debates of an election campaign to recover something as simple as good management, normality, punctuality," also highlighting that "getting on an AVE at this Delicias station does not mean having to sleep badly the night before."
Given this situation, he has defended that the commitment of the Partido Popular involves "recovering management, that it be the civil engineers, the train drivers, the railway controllers, who truly take care of making the decisions" and not political appointments.
He has criticized "what is happening at present in such an important body as the ADIF, which is responsible for managing the railway system in our country" and has warned that "if Pedro Sánchez continues governing for the next four years, the problems that we have had, the appointments that we have seen in the Ministry of Transport, or that we have seen in the Adif, are going to continue being the general pattern."
By contrast, he has assured that "if there is a change of government in Spain, the Partido Popular is going to do what we know how to do, solve the problems of our neighbors, solve the real and daily problems, as it means getting on a train." In addition, he has defended the need to improve the road network and take advantage of all existing hydraulic infrastructures.
He has reminded that "on November 29 we have the opportunity to say goodbye to bad management, to bad rulers, to the person who has been concerned with putting a hand in the till instead of managing the real problems of every single one of the Spanish people; we are going to say goodbye to the unbearable corruption of Koldo, Ábalos, Zapatero and of the entire family around the President of the Government."
For Azcón, this electoral appointment is key: it is "the most important campaign since Spain recovered democracy, the campaign for political change, which is going to put an end to eight years of Pedro Sánchez's misrule and which has to open a new stage in Spain," he has said, showing himself confident that "the people of Aragon are going to fill the ballot boxes with votes for the Partido Popular."
"World reference"
The mayor of Zaragoza, Natalia Chueca, has recalled that, before Pedro Sánchez arrived at Moncloa, the AVE "was a symbol of our country that allowed us to be a worldwide reference" and that its rollout marked "a before and after" for the city, by connecting it "with reliability and punctuality" with Madrid and Barcelona, which "meant a major boost for the city's competitiveness and an asset for attracting investment".
She has regretted that, in recent years, the service "has been affected by a lack of reliability" and has warned that, in the general elections of 29N, Zaragoza and all of Spain are playing "exactly that, to have reliability or to have again a network where there is no safety or punctuality".
Chueca described how the deterioration of the AVE began with "small incidents" related to punctuality, followed by stops on the tracks, the fire of a convoy on October 12 at the height of Ricla (Zaragoza) and, more recently, the episode of a train that "has skipped the Zaragoza station".
She emphasized that "negligence and lack of maintenance have cost 116 lives in recent months", referring to the accidents in Adamuz (Córdoba) and Urda (Toledo).
According to the mayor, what is at stake for the people of Zaragoza is "choosing between a Government that knows how to manage competently and honestly and a Government that has given up on managing services and infrastructures, which has ministers in jail, like Ábalos, who put friends and buddies in place of managers, who has removed the managers from public companies".
She added that the Public Prosecutor's Office is investigating "to see where the European funds assigned to the rail system have gone", and she contrasted "two completely opposed models: The PSOE one, which doesn't know how to move forward the general State budgets, harassed by corruption, or the PP model, which is characterized by good management, which knows how to plan and which is the only one capable of rebuilding degraded infrastructures and public services".
Chueca cited as an example the management of Azcón, which, as she said, repairs roads and attracts billion-euro investments, as opposed to other political officials who "what they do is buy political support for their independentist partners, to cling to power without respecting citizens and without a commitment to public service".
He has argued that the current Zaragoza city government is "the best endorsement" for the PP's management, pointing out that in four years four budgets have been approved and investments long expected have been carried out, with an execution rate of 90%, which rises to 96% in the case of European funds.
Among those actions, he has cited interventions in the Huerva river area, the recovery of the former Giesa factory, and improvements to the public transport network, which, in his view, reflect "good management, honesty, and commitment to citizens."
For Chueca, "Feijóo is the only leader at a national level who can lead the rebuilding of public services." He recalled that the current PP president governed Galicia with four absolute majorities.
For her part, Rocío Dívar has stressed that "the AVE was a symbol of our prosperity, of travelers' comfort and safety, of opportunities for everyone, but all of that has been destroyed by the PSOE government."
He has maintained that the accidents in Adamuz (Córdoba) and Urda (Toledo) "could have been avoided" and he has recalled that the European Public Prosecutor's Office "wants to know where the European funds are for maintenance and safety of the rail lines."
Investment plan
Rocío Dívar has focused on the situation of the former Minister of Transport, José Luis Ábalos, whom she described as convicted of corruption and with several investigations opened for the alleged collection of kickbacks in contracts linked to the rail network.
Against this backdrop, she has argued that Alberto Núñez Feijóo's project is based on the idea that public services should be run by "capable people" and that "accountability returns." She has advanced that the PP will push forward an investment plan endowed with 300,000 million euros aimed at modernizing trains and roads across the country.