Spanish rail disaster ramps up pressure on Sánchez

MADRID — A train collision that killed 45 people in southern Spain this month is piling even more political pressure on the struggling, Socialist-led government of Pedro Sánchez.

Sánchez is already weaker than at any point during his eight years in power thanks to a string of corruption and sexual harassment scandals that have rocked his party over the past year. Sensing its moment to open another line of attack, the opposition is now seizing on the rail tragedy of Jan. 18 to accuse the government of neglecting vital public services.

“It’s a general symptom of the fact that essential public services that depend on the government are not working,” said Alberto Núñez Feijóo, leader of the conservative opposition People’s Party (PP). “It’s proof of their collapse. The state of the railway track reflects the state of the country.”

The far-right Vox party also slammed the accident as “criminal incompetence” on the part of the government.

Political analysts did not expect the political tussles over the rail disaster would be an immediate breaking point for Sánchez’s government, but noted the subject could harm the Socialists’ chances in regional elections in Aragón in the northeast of Spain in February, and in Castilla y León in the northwest in March.

Railway fears

Trains are a major component of Spain’s logistical and economic infrastructure. Its high-speed network is the second-largest in the world after China, and carried some 40 million passengers over 2024, an increase of 22 percent compared with the previous year. In all, Spain’s rail network carried 549 million passengers in 2024.

This month’s crash, near the town of Adamuz, was the country’s worst since 2013. A high-speed train derailed along a straight section of track and collided with an oncoming train. Investigators are focusing on a crack in the welding between an old section of track and a newer one as the potential cause of the derailment, although their probe continues.

Crucially, the accident is being linked to broader fragility within the rail system, for which Sánchez’s government has to take some responsibility.

Only two days after the Adamuz smash, a trainee driver died on a regional train in Catalonia after a wall collapsed onto the line near Barcelona. Several days of chaos ensued in the northeastern region as drivers demanded safety guarantees before returning to work and technical faults caused further disruption. 

Safety precautions have led to temporary speed reductions on a number of high-speed routes across the country, including between Madrid and Barcelona after a crack in the track was discovered. “The challenge is not just to ensure reliable infrastructure, but also to restore Spaniards’ confidence” in the rail system, said El País national daily.

Political impact

The sheer number of Sánchez’s allies that have been afflicted by scandals has sparked repeated speculation that his coalition, which no longer commands a stable parliamentary majority, might be about to collapse. 

In November, the attorney general, Álvaro García Ortiz, was removed from office after being found guilty of leaking confidential information in a court case involving the boyfriend of a prominent right-wing politician. A number of Sánchez’s current and former allies are facing corruption probes, and some senior Socialists have been the target of sexual impropriety allegations.

In November, the attorney general, Álvaro García Ortiz, was removed from office. | Fernando Sanchez/Europa Press via Getty Images

Compounding all this, the rail crisis has now handed critics a different kind of ammunition against the government.

“There is now a line of attack against the government which is not directly linked to either its alliances with [Catalan and Basque] pro-independence parties or corruption,” said Pablo Simón, a political scientist at Carlos III University.

“It’s the idea that the government is not able to adequately manage public services under its remit.”

The opposition zeroed in on that same weakness last year after an energy blackout hit the country for several hours in April.

Much of the latest criticism has been aimed at Transport Minister Óscar Puente, who has been the government’s frontman on the Adamuz crash. A divisive figure, nicknamed “Sánchez’s Rottweiler,” he is a natural lightning rod for opposition ire.

In the immediate aftermath of the accident, Puente insisted it hadn’t been caused by poor maintenance, obsolete infrastructure or a lack of investment. But the opposition is demanding his resignation, claiming he misled the public by suggesting that the whole line on which the accident occurred had been replaced recently, which was not the case.

Government spokesperson Elma Saiz said Puente “has been where he has to be and is still there, giving explanations in search of the truth and always with empathy and accompanying the relatives of victims.”

Regional tensions

Meanwhile, the rail chaos in Catalonia has revived a longstanding grievance of nationalists there: that the Spanish state has chronically underinvested in their regional network. The Catalan Republican Left (ERC), a parliamentary ally of the government, has also called for Puente to step down.

The tensions of recent days bear some similarity to the fallout from the flash floods that killed 237 people in eastern Spain in October 2024. The PP-led local government’s apparent mishandling of that tragedy, under the leadership of Carlos Mazón, then president of Valencia, is believed to have eroded support for the conservatives in the region and hurt them on the national level.

Simón said it will only become apparent how damaging the railway problems are for Sánchez when more details of the Adamuz crash investigation emerge. He added he did not expect the prime minister to resign or call an election over it.

But with an election looming on Feb. 8 in Aragón, before Castilla y León the following month, the rail system has been thrust onto the campaign trail.

Simón said the crisis “could have a negative impact on an electoral level” for Sánchez’s Socialists.

“Above all because it’s clear [the central government] is responsible, and over the last three years there have been frequent problems with trains in Spain, and that affects a lot of people,” he said.