Big News From Mexico.
Authorities arrest Elba Esther Gordillo, hugely powerful chief of the national teachers union, and charge her with misuse of union funds, money laundering.
She is one of the pillars of the PRI regime, but had broken with the party in the last election, and is widely believed to be a major obstacle to education reform — probably the most powerful woman in Mexico.
This marks an interesting start to the presidency of Enrique Pena Nieto, of the PRI. Reforms that EPN had signed into law recently stripped Elba Esther, as she’s known, of her power to hire and fire teachers. Here’s the LA Times story.
Resembles the start of Carlos Salinas’s term, when he arrested the powerful head of the Oil Workers union, Joaquin Hernandez, known as La Quina, as a first step in what Salinas proposed would be a transformation of the Mexican economy.
Here’s what La Quina said about Elba Esther.
Mexico’s Attorney General, Jesus Murillo Karam, said there was no political motive behind Gordillo’s arrest.
Wow….As an ironic note, I’m watching the PBS documentary on the women’s movement as I write this.
