Elba Esther Gordillo Morales (; 6 February 1945) is a Mexican politician who has been the leader of the 1.4-million-strong National Education Workers' Union (Sindicato Nacional de Trabajadores de la Educación, or SNTE), the largest labor union in Latin America, since 1989. She was formerly affiliated with the Institutional Revolutionary Party (Partido Revolucionario Institucional, or PRI) until 2005, when she left and founded the New Alliance Party (Partido Nueva Alianza, or PANAL), which is currently led by Luis Castro Obregón. Gordillo was arrested by the Mexican authorities on 26 February 2013 on charges of embezzlement and organized crime. She was included in a list of the "10 most corrupt Mexicans" published by Forbes in 2013. Gordillo has held considerable influence over governments and individual presidents by persuading her union members to vote as a single bloc. Early life Elba Esther Gordillo was born on 6 February 1945, in Comitán, Chiapas. Career Gordillo joined the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) in 1970, at the height of its "dirty war". She has occupied several PRI positions including Secretary of Organization of the National Executive Council (1986–1987), General Secretary of the Council of National Popular Organizations (1997–2002), and General Secretary of the National Executive Council, the second highest position within the party. Gordillo then became one of the most powerful women in Mexican politics. She was the President of the Chamber of Deputies in 1987. She was the head of the PRI faction in the Chamber of Deputies, but after a political war with Roberto Madrazo, she lost that position when a slim majority of 118 PRI deputies voted to oust Gordillo as head of their 224-seat faction in the lower house. Gordillo was forced out of the congress leadership presumably because her political ambitions clashed with those of Madrazo regarding the presidential elections of 2006. Heightened political pressure and illness pushed Gordillo out from public life for about a year, though she did hold on to her post as the PRI secretary general. In early 2005 Gordillo returned to public life and Roberto Madrazo greeted her with open arms. According to PRI rules, Gordillo, as secretary general of the party, should have replaced Madrazo when he stepped down; but, in a surprise move, Mariano Palacios Alcocer took Madrazo's position instead of Gordillo, who publicly broke with Madrazo just few days before Palacios Alcocer's election. Gordillo accused Madrazo of trying to bribe her with