“I know it’s not my competition, but…” The most combative minister with the opposition, the apparatchik of the PSOE, which never shied away from hand-to-hand combat with the PP and its political rivals even before the investiture, has disappeared in the middle of the DANA. The tragedy has uncovered another side of Óscar Puente (Valladolid, 1968), who has been away from the partisan fray these days and who only appears to take stock of the infrastructure reconstruction tasks and offer a real-time report on how the Government’s work is evolving. in matters that sometimes exceed their own ministry.
Whether we are facing a new Óscar Puente or whether he has paused due to the catastrophe in his belligerent speech against the political rivals who attack the Government, time will tell. During the last week, some of the profiles that the minister had blocked on networks missed not being able to access their service information (something that has already been solved with the latest X changes that allow blocked users to consult the messages). And now there are thousands of followers who appreciate his daily reports on how the affected municipalities are, the evolution of the rescue efforts and, above all, the reconstruction of the area, in messages that he now spreads with a tone of encouragement, respect and optimism. .
He has been nicknamed “the bricklayer of the State” on the networks where memes abound that humorously attribute superpowers to him, for which he thanks public workers, civil engineering companies and technicians from the Ministry of Transport, which continues in the middle. of another storm, the accusation of his predecessor, José Luis Ábalos, and his relations with the corrupt plot that according to all indications profited from the sale of masks during the pandemic.
Since the beginning of this other tragedy that is DANA Puente, it has used the networks not only to launch daily threads with the progress of the reconstruction work, rehabilitation of roads or railways, but it has also worked hard to deny hoaxes. and provide the specific figures of the State’s participation in the Valencian Community. All this without entering into any controversy about the management of other administrations. Neither on the networks nor in the interviews he has given to the media.
Whether it is strategy or not, Puente has become the Government’s main communicator. And its main function is to send messages of encouragement about the recovery, mainly of the infrastructure. “While we are doing the work on the A7 bypass, we have enabled a passage through it for military and emergency convoys. Here you can see one passing by. “This is already a twist!!!,” he tweeted this Friday, accompanying his message with a video of the troops working in the area. Shortly before, he explained that the work of the day would be “the spreading of land” for the “250 concrete blocks” that were being used to make the aforementioned detour on one of the main Valencian highways. To do this, he noted, his department has deployed 100 trucks, three bulldozers, three backhoes, two front loaders, a milling machine and four compaction rollers.
“More than 6 pieces of machinery continuously at this point in C3. We have to dismantle 2.5 km of track. But there are means and drive,” he also noted this Friday, referring to the reconstruction work of the Cercanías railway tracks that still, more than a week after the flood, have not been able to be restored normally.
“We are focused on Valencia, but at the same time we also continue working in the rest of Spain. We are advancing the works to rehabilitate and replace the 175 km road surface of the AP-36 and the A-43 in Castilla La Mancha. We allocated €19.4 million to improve traffic conditions and road safety on the roads passing through the provinces of Albacete, Toledo and Cuenca, with the minimum possible impact on traffic,” he added on Thursday.
In all his publications Puente adds images, videos, maps and graphs that help understand these reconstruction efforts. And all the messages give off a positive tone, looking forward after the tragedy, which dozens of users noticeably value. “I’m afraid of going out to throw out the trash and that Óscar Puente has put two roundabouts and a traffic light on my way,” a Twitter user joked, for example, on the 4th.
In reality, this strategy of using
Only then he alternated that service information with all kinds of puddles, which he also did not shy away from when a rival attacked the Government. On Twitter he had responded with insults and started bitter discussions in response to the disqualifications he received. Last October, for example, he had a loud fight with the mayor of Seville, José Luis Sanz, over the subsidy for some metro works in the city. The councilor accused him of “punishing” the Andalusian capital and, immediately, Puente reacted. “I am going to explain to you why I do not meet, nor will I meet with this man. And I’ll summarize it for you. He is a liar and a disgrace. The government HAS NOT DELAYED PAYMENTS TO THE SEVILLE METRO and much less because it gives anything to Catalonia,” he responded, in X.
In March, shortly after elDiario.es revealed the tax crimes of the partner of the president of the Community of Madrid, Isabel Díaz Ayuso – whom X has also considered “incompetent” and with a “dubious mental balance” – , the minister asked for his resignation and called Alberto González Amador a “front man with the right to influence.” For the head of Transport, Telemadrid is “teleayuso” and television in Castilla y León, “telemañueco”.
The friction with the private train operators has been loud, but if there is a leader with whom he has confronted, even before the start of the legislature, it has been Alberto Núñez Feijóo, to whom he responded in the Congress of Deputies during his Frustrated investiture session. When Feijóo claimed his right to be sworn in as president, for being the list with the most votes, despite not having a majority in the Chamber, Puente recalled that he had also gotten more votes in Valladolid and the right-wingers removed him from the mayor’s office. He took advantage of that pact with Vox to challenge Feijóo from the lectern: “From winner to winner, tell me why you have more rights than me.”
The PP benches responded to that intervention with all kinds of insults to Puente and since then the minister has referred to Feijóo as “the friend of the drug trafficker”, and has openly laughed at him saying that he is not president of the Government because he did not want to. . He has also called far-right agitator Vito Quiles “a bag of shit” for launching a hoax about his official car. And he has confronted what he calls “fachosphere”, in relation to the media that confused one of his daughters with an alleged lover.
On networks he has always defended his right to block those users who he understands are attacking him. “I don’t understand what the problem is with blocking someone on Twitter,” he explained repeatedly. “It is my community patio and I decide who I interact with.”
For now, it remains firm in that conviction, despite the fact that its networks have become one of the Government’s main communication channels. It remains to be seen if when the humanitarian and also political DANA storm that has devastated the south of Valencia subsides, Puente en in the harshest minister of the Government.
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