Marta Sahagún, the first lady who wanted to save the poor and saved herself

Former Mexican President Vicente Fox Quesada and his wife, Marta Sahagún, in a file image. Ivan Stephens / CUARTOSCURO

Marta Sahagún wanted to be the Mexican Evita Perón.

Or at least that's what she used to say to the press when she was first lady.

The wife of former President Vicente Fox Quesada (2000-2006) was obsessed with the Argentine flag-bearer of the shirtless, the wife of Juan Domingo Perón who became known worldwide as an advocate for the poor.

"I have to be Evita," Sahagún repeated at that time.

But that middle-class woman who came to power promising to help those most in need ended up embroiled in scandals and accusations of corruption.

“It ended in the darkest twilight,” says Argentine journalist Olga Wornat (Misiones, 62 years old).

Two decades after the publication of

La Jefa

, a biography of the former first lady that caused a stir in Mexico at the beginning of the six-year period of the transition, the author presents the reissue.

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• "I am a woman with a political vocation, but I am not in a hurry"

"Everything Marta Sahagún did, she did for herself," says Wornat by video call from Argentina, where she has lived since leaving Mexico in 2011 under death threats.

When Fox won the presidential election and put an end to 71 years of PRI in power, he came to Los Pinos hand in hand with Sahagún, with whom at that time he had an extramarital love affair.

The woman, born in an industrial city in the state of Michoacán, immediately became the president's spokesperson.

Presumed, flirtatious and always with a smile on her face, the spokeswoman gained so much prominence that she “commanded almost on par” with the president.

With a popularity far greater than that of Fox, Sahagún began to dream of the presidency.

"The humble women were happy because they said: 'For a purpose a first lady who is not submissive," recalls the journalist.

But the power went to his head.

“Marta changed.

She was no longer that woman who seemed to take care of the most vulnerable.

He was corrupted, his children were corrupted, the Government was corrupted and terrible things happened in that six-year term ”.

Marta Sahagún, in a ceremony at the Basilica of Guadalupe.Nelly Salas / CUARTOSCURO

The boss

ventilates the intimacies of the couple in their career to Los Pinos and during the Government, from accusations of gender violence against Sahagún's first husband to the problems in the presidential bedroom, and goes through the palatial disagreements and impunity pacts with criminals . When it was first published - a

best-seller

almost immediately - Wornat hinted at influence peddling and the use of public resources for private ends.

The author was already charging in 2001 against the children that the first lady had with a Guanajuato veterinarian for being "good for nothing" with a "manifest voracity to do business" that raised serious doubts about legality.

A few years later, two of the heirs ended up involved in the Oceanography case, a corruption scandal involving the national oil company.

The journalist Olga Wornat, in an image of the planet's editorial archive.

"She knew what her children were doing, she was their partner, she managed them," says Wornat.

Sahagún took the writer to court for moral damages after the publication in 2005 of the book

Crónicas malditas

, a text where he delved into the illicit business of the first lady's heirs. A case that reached the Supreme Court and Argentina ended up winning. "I never messed with his life, I exercised my right to write about a person who was in power," says the journalist. The reissue of the work becomes current in the middle of the judicial process against the chief of police Genaro García Luna, detained in the United States for organized crime. The former number one of the police force during Felipe Calderón's six-year term (2006-2012) was a key player in Fox's security policy. His case has targeted several characters, including one of the sons of Sahagun.

In her obsession to become the Mexican Evita, "the boss" created a foundation in the image and likeness of the one created by the Argentine first lady.

Vamos México

was initially born to help the marginalized, but it became an organization that paid for the luxuries of the political elite of the time.

"She herself called on the phone to ask for money," says Wornat.

"A very powerful businessman told me: 'I knew that this money was going directly to his bank account and that it was not going to the poor children, but who was going to say no to the president's wife?"

The association ended the six-year term as did its founder, devoured by accusations of money laundering and fraud.

Marta Sahagún in an archive image with Vicente Fox, Juan Carlos I and José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero.

VICTOR R. CAIVANO / AP

Away from politics and the cameras, the first lady who wanted to be president currently spends her days on a ranch in Guanajuato, with her husband. All the promises he made, primarily to the poor and vulnerable women, vanished along with his popularity. "He had no obligation to comply, but he also had no right to enrich himself, extort people and ally with the mafias," adds the writer.

After Evita's death in 1952, Perón remarried.

María Estela Martínez, or Isabelita, as she was called, assumed the presidency after the death of the general in 1974. Her mandate marked the beginning of one of the most black and cruel times in Argentine history.

When Wornat remembers Sahagun's words about becoming a standard bearer for the poor, she thinks, “Avoid?

Well be careful.

The story is very cruel and you can also be Isabelita ”.

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