Guadalupe Irizar
Reform Agency
Tuesday, May 02, 2023 | 19:03
Mexico City.- Elba Esther Gordillo, former general secretary of the National Union of Education Workers (SNTE), responded to the accusations of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador and disclaimed the appointment at the beginning of Felipe Calderón’s six-year term of Miguel Ángel Yunes as head of ISSSTE.
However, he admitted that as a leader of the teachers he knew of alleged embezzlement by Yunes and that he told then-President Calderón that the teachers were opposed to his continuing in office and that they would take over the facilities of that agency in protest against the management of the Veracruz .
“When (President Calderón) told me that Yunes was doing his job well, he left me no choice but to warn him that we would take over the ISSSTE facilities and that was his response: ‘I’ll wait for you there with the Army,'” he said.
“This happened in the framework of a public event at a technical secondary school in what is now Mexico City. Given his response, I got up and left.”
“That was the response of the then president of Mexico, Felipe Calderón, when I told him that the teachers of Mexico were opposed to Miguel Ángel Yunes continuing as head of the ISSSTE given the embezzlement of financial funds that the workers, with so much work, at the service of the State we achieved with the reform of said institution,” he added,
In a letter made public this Tuesday on his social networks, Gordillo does not refer to the close public relationship he had with the head of ISSSTE when he was a federal deputy and leader of the PRI parliamentary group in 2003, nor at the time of his appointment by Calderón. in that institution, a position that Yunes held from December 1, 2005 to February 22, 2010.
Nor does he talk about the break with the man from Veracruz, who also left public testimony of his close relationship and subsequent break with her.
“Let’s remember that the election and removal of the ISSSTE director is the sole and exclusive responsibility of the head of the federal Executive and not yours truly,” said the teacher.
“For this reason, in relation to the statements made by President Andrés Manuel López Obrador on April 28 of this year about my person and the management of Mr. Miguel Ángel Yunes at the head of ISSSTE, I categorically say that I did not participate in an illegal act someone as he accuses me from his rostrum”, he pointed out.
Although he manifests his respect for the presidential inauguration and the law, he asked the head of the federal Executive for respect.
“Therefore, Mr. President: enough of false accusations against me,” he concluded.
On Friday, López Obrador addressed the diversions and looting at ISSSTE and the privatization and businesses under the protection of public health institutions.
“Imagine what they did at ISSSTE. The teacher Elba Esther (Gordillo) was there at ISSSTE, well, she was the one who imposed (Miguel Ángel) Yunes, former PRI governors, one from Chihuahua, and others who dedicated themselves to to loot. Even to do a blood test, you had to go to a private laboratory; all subrogated services. ISSSTE left it like a shell, nothing belongs to ISSSTE,” AMLO said.
Gordillo reappeared in public life in July 2022, after five years in prison during the six-year term of Enrique Peña Nieto and was released in August 2018, once AMLO’s triumph in the Presidency was known.
Since then, he has indicated his intention to be close to the country’s political life, particularly the teachers’ union.
On July 6, 2011, after leaving office and running for governor of Veracruz for the PAN and distancing himself from Gordillo, Yunes accused the teacher of asking him for money for his party at the time, the Honeycomb (New Alliance Party), and appointments at ISSSTE.
“I asked him: who has it? And his answer was: ‘Me, because ISSSTE is mine’ (). You are wrong. I answer to President Felipe Calderón,” Yunes said on that date at a press conference reported by the national media.
