The stepping down of the president of Adif completes the correction of the continuity guarantees that sources from the Government relayed earlier before Óscar Puente’s resignation. Carlos Cuerpo replaces Pedro Marco de la Peña and opens another stage in managing the rail crisis. The question left by that sequence is how much those who dismissed the exits knew and why they presented them as impossible.
The president of Adif was not going to be dismissed either. That was one of the guarantees that sources from the Government conveyed on Tuesday, along with the continuity of Óscar Puente at Transportes and at the head of the Socialist Party’s candidacy for Valladolid. The minister announced his resignation that night.
The information it intended to close the discussion about political responsibilities ends up instead as the record of two decisions that the Executive had ruled out. First the minister came out. Then came the person in charge of the public company that manages the rail infrastructure.
Demócrata noticed that second guarantee before the outcome was known: if Puente’s continuity had lasted so little, the president of Adif had reasons to try his luck. It was an interpretation of the fragility of that support, not information about a decided dismissal.
The arrival of Carlos Cuerpo has changed who makes decisions at Transportes. It also forces the Government to explain what has changed so that a replacement that was not on the table ends up being one of the answers to the crisis.
A guarantee with two names
The Tuesday message was specific, to "sources from the Government" and filtered to specialized media and to the EFE agency: Puente would not resign, Pedro Sánchez would not dismiss him, and the PSOE would keep its candidacy in Valladolid. The same information added that dismissing Adif’s president was also not on the table.
It was not only confidence being communicated in the minister’s management. His conduct was being anticipated and a decision about another senior post was being ruled out. The argument accompanying those certainties was that assuming responsibilities required remaining in charge, attending to those affected, and regaining trust in the railways. When Puente announced his resignation, the departure began to be presented as an exercise in dignity and political responsibility.
Both decisions can find an explanation. But the Government—or, at least "its sources"—must account for the change, especially after having defended so firmly that the first one was the right one.
Agitation in the backrooms
The matter of settling political responsibilities after the second tragedy in the high-speed line over the course of a year did not present much political difficulty alongside the enormous human drama: to dismiss immediately the minister and whoever was in charge of the infrastructure operator, that is, Adif. However, again, the “reflection.” For several days, while explanations were being given and the victims were being attended to, there was no assumption of responsibilities. What was the explanation? According to various journalists and, finally, “government sources,” who, it turns out, that there would be none.
The president wanted it to continue: it is understood that both he and the president of Adif—strange the doublet—and he would have asked to stay. This was “sold” to various media; many choked on their dinner when they saw Puente’s resignation live. And it seems that, in parallel with the Government “ensuring” his continuity and that of the leader of Adif, the minister himself would have avoided sharing his plans to prevent them from convincing him of it. At least two media outlets claim that Puente did not want to convey his decision in advance to avoid interference, not even from his own “boss” and party leader.
From here, you have to think well or badly. Being benevolent, the government sources, which guaranteed Puente’s staying on, could know Sánchez’s will and not know that of the now former minister. If they are not like that, there is a solitary and independent “operator” criterion of Puente, in which he decides the timing.
Political miscoordination in the face of the catastrophe
If the president wanted Puente to continue until the elections, but the minister decided to leave and warned him with a message instants before announcing it, it explains why Moncloa could have been unaware of the decision; it also describes a president with no room to intervene in the departure of one of his main ministers.
The problem is not that Puente might resign against Sánchez’s criterion. A minister can decide not to continue. The coordination problem appears when the Government guarantees his staying on while he prepares to leave, and when the president ends the day by praising a decision that, according to those same reconstructions, he had tried to avoid.
A coordinated exit would have allowed communicating the resignation, explaining its reasons, and presenting the transition without the Executive, at night, denying what it had assured in the morning. What has been published describes another sequence: Puente controls the timing of the announcement and Moncloa then adapts its explanation. Remaining was a responsibility; leaving becomes dignity.
Some of the sources consulted by the media after the resignation speak of “surprise,” but they leave the president facing an uncomfortable dilemma. If they knew of the decision and guaranteed the opposite, they would have spread a falsehood knowingly. If they did not know it, they spoke with a certainty that their information did not allow.
The Body receives the portfolio and reviews the decisions
Sánchez announced on Wednesday that Carlos Cuerpo would assume the powers of Transportes after Puente’s resignation. The choice allows maintaining management within the cabinet and places the economic vice president at the head of the response to the rail crisis.
Cuerpo cited Pedro Marco de la Peña this afternoon. The meeting placed the continuity of the president of Adif among the first issues that the new head of Transportes had to address and as well as yesterday DEMÓCRATA declined, the decision of his departure is not very surprising
Puente’s resignation and the eventual dismissal of the president of Adif should not be counted as if they were the same decision. The minister announced a resignation that, according to the reconstructions published, Sánchez did not want. A dismissal at Adif would be a decision by the Executive.