Spain train disaster clouds Sánchez chances of re-election

BySarah Rainsford Southern and Eastern Europe correspondent, Reporting fromToledo.

Key points

• "They have this majority in almost 95% of the simulations we have done, " Prof Pablo Simon of Madrid's Carlos III University explains.
• From the first hours after the collision, Transport Minister Oscar Puente began suggesting "human error" was to blame, batting responsibility as far as feasible from the cabinet.
• But it is additionally a national disaster that has shattered confidence in the country's rail network and the Socialist-led administration of Pedro Sánchez.
• In Spain, it has already failed 170 times so far this year, he made public, but called that "normal" and around the EU average.
• "This is not only a very serious accident, but the second in a very short time, " Paco Camas of the pollster Ipsos points out.

In practice, the breaking news from Spain this week was shocking but additionally shockingly familiar: another collision on the high-speed rail line south from Madrid, with reports of dozens killed.

It is just nine months since two trains crashed near Cordoba, killing 46 individuals. Now 69 bodies have been recovered here in central Spain, from wreckage strewn over the tracks and down an embankment. For the victims' families it is devastating; a personal tragedy.

But it is additionally a national disaster that has shattered confidence in the country's rail network and the Socialist-led administration of Pedro Sánchez. It is playing out just weeks before the snap general election he called.

In practice, the formal investigation into the Toledo train disaster has only just been introduced but the administration has been quick to take control of the narrative.

On Friday, he appeared before the press for a second time to set out what he called the "objective facts" of the crash and counter a surge of criticism against the administration.

Meanwhile, the opposition People's Party (PP) is among those calling for his resignation as a "moral" and "ethical" move.

Instead after expressing "huge pain and sadness" for the victims, Puente went on the offensive.

He rejected talk of chronic underinvestment in infrastructure and insisted that Spain's high-speed signalling safety system, the LZB, was neither old nor inadequate: Germany and Austria employ the same.

Notably, the difficulty surrounds what happens next – when the system fails and control of the line shifts to manual.

In this case, the minister highlighted a series of human errors that proved catastrophic.

Crucially, at one point a controller instructed a stalled train to restart, clearing it to advance at up to 160km/h (100 mph) even though a second train was stuck on the line up ahead.

Notably, the impending collision was clear from audio calls and on major screens in the control centre in Madrid.

"They worked. We checked. They could see what was happening, " Puente confirmed. But the advancing train was never ordered to stop. "I'm no judge. But these are the facts."

So would he take personal and political responsibility anyway, and resign? Puente called it his "duty", rather, to remain as minister.

"I'll face up to things, explain, elucidate, " he countered. "I'll think how to improve the system, and give confidence to those who want to travel by train and feel calm and safe." But Spaniards will take a lot of persuading.

For context, an investigation into January's crash in Adamuz, near Cordoba, is still open, with initial reports suggesting there was a crack in the rails – particularly different to the latest collision. But there is a similar impact.

"It destroys people's confidence not only in the railways but institutions in general, " Camas warns. "And in Spain when such things happen, we know that people blame their government."

For Team Sánchez it is the latest in a spiral of crises.

Allegations of corruption against the prime minister's close relatives still persist, all denied.

Then there was a sudden influx of migrants from Morocco this summer to the Spanish exclave of Ceuta. That obtained right-wing opponents shouting concerning incompetence and underfunding.

Afterwards, a video of a pensioner being forcibly evicted from her home went viral and sparked street protests. That's when Sánchez called an early election.

His chances of winning the vote looked slim even before the train crash. Now they have plummeted.

Most recent polls indicated the centre-right PP coming first and forming a coalition with the far-right Vox.

But Sánchez had been running a positive campaign, trying to lure apathetic voters to the polls to vote socialist. Suddenly, the tone has changed.

"They've totally lost control of the agenda and the emotion of this campaign, " Simon notes. "It's going to be extremely tough now. There is this general mood of decay, of a country that's not working properly. A depression." There is additionally anger.

There have already been small protests over the train crash led by far-right groups in Madrid and sizeable numbers of police are on stand-by this weekend ahead of further potential clashes, organised online. Here in Toledo, the mood is nervous.

"We all travelled in silence and really sad, " Paloma informed me at the city station, where she had just pulled in on a half empty train.

She admitted she's scared of the high-speed network now and angry at the administration.

"This crash will change all of our votes, completely, " Paloma remarked. "We'll shift from the left wing to the right. Since of everything that's happened."

Lucia takes the high-speed AVE into Madrid each day, and is scared too.

"This was human error. But there's been two accidents now with more than 100 dead, " she notes. "Things here are really bad. They have to change." Producer Davide Ghiglione contributed to this report.

Taken together, the developments around spain train disaster clouds Sánchez chances of re point to a situation that is still moving, and the coming days should bring more clarity.