Elba Esther Gordillo and Luis Antonio Lagunas.RRSS
Elba Esther Gordillo gets married.
She is not just any name in Mexico, she is
La Maestra,
one of the people who has accumulated the most power in the North American country for several decades in which her tentacles between union, political and economic power allowed her to appoint and remove leaders and accumulate a fortune unbecoming not only of a union leader, but of anyone that you have to show where so much money comes from.
Her leadership went through the mandate of several Mexican presidents until the idyll was broken and in Peña Nieto's six-year term (2013-2018) she ended up in jail.
Before that, she behaved like a character on coated paper: mansions in the United States, jewelry, works of art and cosmetic surgery.
And she was only the leader of a union, but not of any, in the powerful National Union of Teaching Workers (SNTE) more than 1.5 million teachers and educational personnel are unionized,
Elba Esther Gordillo, at 77 years old, is marrying for the third time, this time with her lawyer, the one who has brought her the lawsuits she has had to fight, Luis Antonio Lagunas, 41 years old.
The Teacher was released from prison in August 2018 acquitted of the charges, including money laundering.
Her link this Friday, according to local reports, was attended by Alfonso Romo, former head of the Office of the Presidency of the Republic.
The news about her fortune and her alleged corruption still haunt her today, when she has been free since 2018. Last year it was learned that she tried to hide six million dollars in the Banca Privada d'Andorra (BPA) in April 2012. The financial entity rejected that money because the news analyzed always referred to his "inexplicable wealth."
How did a teacher manage to accumulate such a fortune?
Why was a union leader traveling on private flights?
Where did the paintings of Diego Rivera, Francisco Toledo, Gabriel Orozco, Fernando Botero or Rafael Coronel come from?
And the mansion in La Jolla?
And the rings on her fingers?
The influences of the teacher in the political evolution of Mexico were those of some union leaders, who put their members in favor of the presidential or state candidate when the elections required it.
Thousands, millions of teachers were brought to support this or that presidential candidate.
From them money was received in installments, and for them money was collected from the government.
She is not the only person in charge of a trade union center that behaves like this, but she knew how to handle this corrupt Mexican tradition like no one else, until she gained an unavoidable influence for anyone.
She went to jail, yes, but the Mexican justice system acquitted her.
Not so public opinion of her, which maintains a terrible image of her that Gordillo hurts.
She only admits "some mistakes".
"I've sweated it," he once said.
The beginnings of his life could not have been easy.
She was the widow of her first husband when she was 19 years old. She gave him a kidney for a transplant, which caused her kidney damage forever.
Her health has never accompanied her, to the point that she has spent her time behind bars in conditions consistent with her medical problems, even under house arrest.
But her money and her love have been more generous with her.
From time to time, the Prosecutor's Office gave accounts of her millionaire expenses in luxury items from the most bombastic brands on the planet.
“I like to eat well, I like works of art.
I have weaknesses, but I sweat it.”
Nor did he skimp when it came to gift giving.
The media revealed in 2008 that 59 union secretaries had received as many luxury vans, all for a price of 21.8 million pesos.
The added value is unknown in detail.
Gordillo, also following the peculiar Mexican trade union tradition, was a deputy and a senator, and in the last midterm elections, just half a year ago, in June 2021, her political interest remained firm: under the name of her son-in-law, Fernando González Sánchez, she founded a new party, Progressive Social Networks, which finally did not get enough votes to continue standing.
He defended a “progressive capitalism” and a “green deal”.
In an interview with this newspaper in February 2020, she said she was disassociated from any political project and she reserved her right to give her opinion:
"I don't plan to be in any game.
I intend to speak, I am going to give my opinion and act in the democratic life of my country”.
There are those who say that power corrupts and that it exudes an eroticism that is difficult to abandon.
Gordillo left prison wanting to continue without defining very well what.
“There is a lot to say.
I come back because there is a story that has not ended.
My intention is to influence the realization in Mexico of what we workers have dreamed of for a long time.
You don't need a position to raise your voice and say what you believe.
I want to be an active voice, current and committed to the transformation of the Mexican trade union world.
Want to go back to being what I was?
Not necessarily".
Why does he come back?, he was asked months after winning his freedom.
“Go back where?
I don't know if I left.
What's more, I think I've never left, ”she replied.
Indeed, Elba Esther Gordillo is getting married and her name, as dozens of news shows, is still there.
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