Behind the Scenes of Vázquez's Switch

After noting her oddly weak-in-the-knees performance as she announced her resignation, Ricardo Raphael takes an inquisitive look at the departure of Josefina Vázquez: 

Who will be, from here on out, capable of containing the disproportional ambition of the magisterial leader, Elba Esther Gordillo Morales [to whom Raphael devoted a recent book]?

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Would Calderón have removed her from her post so as to keep her from the path the presidency of the republic?

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Is the Señora Gordillo so powerful that the president couldn't avoid sacrificing someone who, on other more difficult times, didn't hesitate to offer him all of her loyalty?

He doesn't directly answer the above questions, but he closes his column with the following:

Given everything, the experience of Josefina Vázquez Mota at the head of the SEP will have to be examined with a magnifying glass. This woman, respected for her honor and reserve, from the beginning was given an impossible mission. Governing an institution kidnapped by the most corrupt and shameless mafia of the Mexican political system, which has counted on the endorsement and legitimation of the president. 

She committed, in 2006, the gravest of the errors that she had in her political career: she believed that her will and intelligence would be enough to bring transparency to the relation between the state and the SNTE [the teacher's union]. 

From all the available evidence, this Mexican politician was used and now they offered her an honorable escape ahead. It won't be easy assimilate this tragic experience. It won't be for her, nor for the rest of us that remain worried about the state in which Mexico's public education is kept.  

Bajo Reserva opines that while there will be strategic advantages to Vázquez leading the PAN deputies (she'll be a better negotiator than the other possibilities), it was a concession to Gordillo.