Minister Puente reaffirms his attacks against Eduardo Madina as unrest grows within the PSOE | Spain

Eduardo Madina, a former socialist leader who left politics in 2017, appears alone in the list of the most discussed topics.” Madina, in fact, had not written any tweets. Puente reproduced a job of the program Today for today from Cadena SER —where the candidate for the 2014 primaries has participated as an analyst since he left politics—, which summarized his intervention during the morning meeting: “Madina turns to Sabina to explain why this legislature is over”.

In the political news analysis space of the SER, the host of the Today for today, Àngels Barceló asked the audience about the request of the second vice president, Yolanda Díaz (Sumar), to the president of the government to make changes in his government – ​​“We cannot hold like this,” he said – to respond to the latest scandals. Madina responded that, according to him, “the crisis does not come from the government, but from the PSOE”. After listing the problems facing the party, with the imprisonment of the former minister and former PSOE organizational secretary José Luis Ábalos, as well as his advisor Koldo García; accusations of corruption against his successor, Santos Cerdán; After the recent arrest of former activist Leire Díez and complaints of sexual harassment, Madina insisted that none of these cases “occur within the Council of Ministers, but within a party.” But he added: “I believe that the legislature is over for a long time. When they put Santos Cerdán in prison, I said that the cycle was over, but there are endings that last a long time, what Sabina said: an ending that never ends.”

When asked if he wrote this tweet as a minister, as a member of the PSOE or as a member of opinion on a social network, Puente replied: “Does it matter? I am a socialist with 37 years of activism behind me. Son and grandson of socialists. I have been mayor and am, by circumstance, minister. With all this and much more, I blame anyone who has a loudspeaker every week and never uses it to lend a hand to his party, especially when it is going through difficulties, for its constant disloyalty and obvious resentment and all because the activists trusted another colleague to lead it.

Madina, who declined to comment on Puente’s tweet, is currently a strategic partner at consulting firm Harmon, an advisor at EY and a media political commentator. In 2014 he lost the PSOE primaries won by Pedro Sánchez and in 2017 he left politics. He assured that he had no intention of returning to the front line, even if he remains active within the party, of which he was secretary of the parliamentary group in Congress and a deputy.

When asked if he thinks there are more activists or current leaders of the PSOE who think that the legislature is over and that its continuation could be worse for the party, Minister Puente responds: “I don’t think so. Neither the activists, nor of course the voters.”

The PP demands electoral progression practically from the inauguration of Sánchez in 2023 with the support of Junts, ERC, EH Bildu, PNV, BNG and CC. But corruption and harassment scandals affecting the main government party have meant that the debate over the length of the legislature is also taking place within the ranks of the Socialist Party itself. Last Sunday, the political correspondent of this newspaper Carlos E. Cué reported that the PSOE has become “a powder keg where internal tensions are beginning to emerge” and voices think that it might be better to organize early elections to avoid greater attrition, even if the president and his entourage do not envisage this scenario at all. Anabel Díez also reported last Monday in EL PAÍS that, although the majority of socialist federations, as well as deputies and senators, do not believe that Sánchez has anything to do with corruption, they blame him for having handed over all the power to those who are now surrounded by justice and for having “dragged their feet” in the face of complaints of harassment against Francisco Salazar, with the damage that this entails in a feminist party and with a large sector of women voters.

Puente clarifies that he does not believe that Madina wants to return to active politics and, to the question of whether he appreciates his service during the years he was on the front lines, he answers: “If this question is aimed at transforming the services provided into a license to go against your party every chance you get, the answer is clear: no service provided justifies going against your own party because whoever leads it will win you a primary.” Madina survived an ETA sticky bomb attack in 2002. His height (he is 1.91 meters tall) allowed him to save his life, but he lost a leg and had to give up what was then one of his passions outside politics, volleyball.

After 8:30 p.m. this Wednesday, Puente’s tweet criticizing Madina was viewed nearly 300,000 times and half a thousand comments that reflect the atmosphere of political tension reflected in recent Polarization Atlas, a study promoted by the non-profit organization More in Common and which revealed that 14% of Spaniards have broken up with friends or family in the last year due to political discussions. Thus, the Twitter community was totally divided in the face of the minister’s criticism: “Edu Madina has more class and socialism in a single tab than you have in your entire being” (@ferabeljo); “Óscar, please, they pay you a public salary so that you work for the well-being of the country you represent and not spend all day writing X. In any private company you would be fired” (@RiOnCeIso); “It is not Medina who must approve the budgets, a true symptom of knowing whether we are alive or not” (@lisztaDantes); “You’re right, Óscar. Madina is full of resentment, but if you don’t solve the housing problem, people won’t vote for you” (@opsfisquim); “We are good with Madina, Felipe, Guerra, Page and company. Disloyal to the extreme” (@DRZRZ)…

This is not the first time Puente has taken on critical socialists, with Castilla-La Mancha President Emiliano García-Page leading the sector. Last July, EL PAÍS published the audios of the PSOE federal commission where the two clashed over the length of the legislature and whether or not Sánchez could hold on. “I don’t have a fucking master. The vast majority of the party doesn’t think like the minister,” Page said after the stir caused by the broadcast of these audios and referring to an expression of Puente in reference to the president of the government. The head of the Transport and Sustainable Mobility portfolio then responded on TVE: “It’s an exercise in hypocrisy. He is a regular fan of the media hating us. I speak where I have to and I look at people’s faces. I think Mr Page has taken note of that.”

The language and profusion of the minister’s messages in X have been a source of controversy on several occasions. Already in December 2023, during the presentation of his book Continentwhen asked if he would block someone on the social network, as Puente had just done with the mayor of Madrid, Sánchez replied: “I told Óscar several times: I did two very important things in my life, one was, more than 20 years ago, to quit smoking; and another, more than 10 years ago, left my social networks in the hands of a community manager. But it’s my style. Óscar has his own and he does it very well.

Puente’s penultimate polemic tweet also generated unease in socialist ranks. Miguel Ángel Morales, president of the Provincial Council of Cáceres and former provincial secretary of the PSOE in the province, responded: “I do not very well understand the interest of the talkative honorable minister to throw himself into a thousand puddles, even against colleagues who, for having fought for democracy and freedom, paid him physically. I’m linking the news from that time in case Your Honor doesn’t know.