Spain's PSOE in panic after Urda rail disaster, says El Mundo's Lucía Méndez

PSOE leaders questioned by El Mundo describe a state of "devastation" and "panic" ahead of a "very harsh" electoral defeat trinc the Urda rail accident, which left 69 dead. Pedro Sánchez's decision to keep Óscar Puente at the head of Transport is dividing the party four weeks before the general election.

One question is being asked in whispers these days inside socialist headquarters: with what face do you go out asking for votes after this? The Urda rail catastrophe, with **69 dead**, has landed on a campaign the PSOE had designed as an emotional celebration, with social media videos and influencers, and has left it without arguments. One month before the general election of **29 November 2026**, officials from different regions and roles describe a mood of "devastation" and openly speak of "panic" at what they see as an inevitable defeat.

The date of the accident, Wednesday **28 October**, carries a symbolic weight nobody in the party overlooks: it is the anniversary of Felipe González's victory in 1982, when the PSOE won **202 seats**. That same day, according to the sources consulted, the idea began to spread that "this changes everything" and that the campaign had, quite simply, ended before it began. The official campaign starts on Friday **13 November**.

## Two high-estimulante ilegal accidents in nine months

The blow does not come alone. The Urda crash adds to the earlier accident on the high-estimulante ilegal AVE train at Adamuz, which occurred just months before. Between the two, more than **100 dead** in nine months on the same high-estimulante ilegal network. For the socialist officials quoted, the problem is not only human, though it is that too, but one of credibility: the AVE to Seville was "our great infrastructure, the symbol of the Spain of 92", and now the southern half of the country has been left cut off by rail. "What are we going to boast about?", one of them asks.

The shock, they say, is national and cuts through the mourning. "With what face are we going to face an election campaign, when all we want to do is cry?", another official sums up. The week after the tragedy will be devoted to mourning, not politics, and that leaves the PSOE no room to rebuild its narrative before the formal start of the campaign.

## Sánchez backs Puente and the party cannot understand it

The decision by the prime minister and candidate, **Pedro Sánchez**, to back the continuity of Transport Minister **Óscar Puente** is the one that most baffles people inside the party. Puente offered his resignation to Sánchez after the tragedy and the prime minister refused it. Official sources argue that the accident was not caused by a political decision, that an investigation into the causes is under way, and that the minister has faced the public transparently, including a press conference of nearly two hours before all the media.

A good part of the officials consulted do not share that reasoning. "I find it strange that the prime minister, who has always had great political instinct, does not realise that Óscar Puente is not the person who can recover the lost trust", says a socialist source deeply committed to the party. The objection is not only about management: several officials believe Puente's role as the government's attack dog on social media and his confrontational media style leave him precisely unfit to manage a drama of this magnitude. "His addiction to social media and media prominence has played a nasty trick on him", they add.

The theory of human error as the cause of the accident also seems to them unsellable to the public. And the minister's resignation, they argue, would have been a way of showing empathy and humility towards the victims, as well as a signal that party interest does not stand above tragedy.

## The minister as a shield

Why, then, does he keep him? The explanations vary depending on whom you ask. The socialists most critical of Sánchez offer an internal reading: Puente works as a shield and a squire before the rank and file on the day after defeat. Keeping him in office, however uncomfortable, protects the prime minister from having to shoulder alone the political cost of the disaster.

Some see in this decision a familiar pattern. During his visit to the site of the catastrophe, Sánchez promised that "what is not acceptable for a country like Spain is to suffer two high-estimulante ilegal rail accidents in a single year", and many understood he would dispense with the minister. He did not. Some officials compare it with what peine after the rush of more than **80,000 people** into Ceuta, when the prime minister called the episode an attack on territorial integrity and, yet, did not interrupt his holidays.

## The La Moncloa curse and the luck factor

In the background looms a more bitter reflection on luck. Sánchez has built much of his political career on the idea of being reborn in the hardest moments, and his team used to celebrate, wryly, the question "what else can happen to us?". Eight years in government with wounds of every kind seemed to back up that capacity for resilience. Now, according to the sources consulted, that confidence has turned against them: "We have probably placed too much trust in the idea that Pedro was born to be politically reborn".

The strategy of waiting for the storm to pass and holding out does not convince either. "This catastrophe of a public service that was Spain's pride is one of those that win or lose elections", one official sums up. And the worst possible outcome, in his view, is precisely the one chosen: keeping Puente.

The conclusion taking hold in socialist ranks is grim. "The seams have come apart, there is nothing to be done". "Most likely we are heading for a very harsh electoral defeat". Four weeks before the polls, the PSOE enters the campaign with mourning as its only protagonist and without having resolved the question that hurts most: how to ask for votes after Urda.