Óscar Puente continues trying to downplay the debate opened about the replacement of the PSOE secretary general after he himself did not rule out being a candidate in an interview with Europa Press. “What I really said applies to the succession of [Pedro] Sánchez, the Pope’s, Kylian Mbappé‘s, or Angelina Jolie’s boyfriend’s,” he wrote on Sunday on his X account, a message he reiterated this Monday during the inauguration of a section of the A-11 highway in the province of Valladolid.
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In response to journalists at that official event, the Minister of Transport asked that no “more value” be given to his words than they “have,” which in his opinion is “quite little,” and emphasized that “what is relevant” and “important” is that the majority party in the coalition leading the central government “has a leader” for this term and the next. To which he added: “Afterwards, where will each of us be?”.
The spark of the new controversy led by Puente lies in the interview with Europa Press in which he says he does not see himself as the most suitable profile for the position, but neither does he rule himself out if the case arises. “I don’t think I am that player, I don’t think I have to take the last shot, using a basketball analogy. I also say that if it came to me with two seconds left and I had to take the shot, I’m not one to pass it,” he states.
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The Minister of Transport does make clear that he does not aspire to unseat Sánchez, whom he describes as “the best possible leader,” “the [Michael] Jordan of the team,” and that “the proof of this is that, if he were not, he would not be the target of all the attacks from the right.” Likewise, he assures that he is “convinced” that the 2027-2031 legislature “very likely would be his last term, for even personal reasons,” an expiration date that not even the Prime Minister has ever publicly raised.
