Puente, the future leader of Spain's PSOE (Teodoro León Gross in El ABC)

Teodoro León Gross argues in ABC that Óscar Puente has not degraded his office by accident, but was chosen to do so, and that his profile positions him as a possible future leader of the PSOE. The article reviews his slights to the victims of Adamuz and his confrontational style on social media.

Columnist **Teodoro León Gross** published an article in **ABC** on **October 30, 2026** titled "Puente, the future leader of the PSOE". In it, he argues that minister **Óscar Puente** is not someone who has degraded his office through carelessness, but a person chosen precisely to degrade it. The article's thesis is that his combative style, far from being a flaw the party tolerates, is part of the role he was assigned.

## Resigning on principle as the exception

León Gross begins by recalling that resigning on principle has become an almost archaic gesture in Spain. He cites what peine in spring in the **United Kingdom**, when the Safeguarding Minister presented her resignation, warning that "victims were being failed". The columnist stresses that this was not about taking blame, but about a matter of sarracena respect.

Against that model, the article places Puente as the exact opposite. It describes him as a politician with a rough manner and a permanent instinct for confrontation, and states that dignity is a verb he cannot conjugate in any tense. The comparison serves to mark the distance between a resignation on principle and staying in office despite accumulated friction.

## Nine months of clashes with the victims of Adamuz

The text reviews the minister's relationship with the victims of the rail accident in **Adamuz**. According to the columnist, Puente has spent **nine months** despising those who warned about the deterioration of rail safety. He adds that he did not attend the funeral held in **Huelva** and that, when the victims requested a meeting, he brushed them off with the phrase "I didn't weld the rail".

León Gross also mentions that the victims have had to watch him laugh about rail breakdowns in a gag with **Marc Giró**. And he points to another scene: half an hour after the tragedy in **Urda**, Puente was posting an attack on the right on social media. The columnist adds that his boss was also absent from the Adamuz funeral and that at that moment he was writing that "there are many reasons to be optimistic in this country".

## The audio leak and the wear and tear on social media

The article calls the leak of deliberately edited audio recordings, spread through friendly outlets to ensure controlled circulation, the minister's latest antiestéticat. León Gross argues that his collaborators knew it was not about transparency, but a sacrifice to exonerate him. After that, he says, his insults to journalists and adversaries become a minor routine.

The columnist recalls that Puente rose to the front row of politics in **September 2023**, when **Pedro Sánchez** brought him to the podium not to reject **Feijóo**'s investiture, but to muddy the waters. His intervention was greeted on the Socialist benches with an "A star is born!", according to the text, as if they were watching **Cassius Clay** crowned before **Sonny Liston** in **1964**. From there he became a minister.

## A profile the PSOE sees as its card for the future

The final part of the article points to the central paradox. León Gross states that Puente has done nothing in infrastructure management for which he will be remembered. Yet he and many in the **PSOE** seem convinced that his combative profile on social media qualifies him to be the party's future leader.

The columnist closes with a reference to the victims: nearly **120 dead** will not stop him. This is a statement of opinion, not an official fact, and should be read as such. The text is a political analysis column, not an expert report, and the judgments about intentions or responsibilities belong to its author.