This article lists events occurring in Mexico during the year 2021. The article lists the most important political leaders during the year at both federal and state levels and will include a brief year-end summary of major social and economic issues. Cultural events, including major sporting events, are also listed. For a more expansive list of political events, see 2021 in Mexican politics and government.
Incumbents President and cabinet President: Andres Manuel López Obrador MORENA
Interior: Olga Sánchez Cordero Foreign Affairs: Marcelo Ebrard Treasury: Arturo Herrera Economy Graciela Márquez Colín (until January 5) Tatiana Clouthier Carrillo (starting January 5) Environment: Maria Luisa Albores Tourism: Miguel Torruco Marqués Civil Service: Irma Sandoval-Ballesteros Health: Jorge Alcocer Varela Development: Román Guillermo Meyer Welfare: Javier May Rodríguez Culture: Alejandra Frausto Guerrero Defense: Luis Cresencio Sandoval Navy: José Rafael Ojeda Durán Security: Alfonso Durazo Montaño Attorney General: Alejandro Gertz Manero
Supreme Court
President of the Supreme Court: Arturo Zaldívar Lelo de Larrea
Governors
Aguascalientes: Martín Orozco Sandoval PAN Baja California: Jaime Bonilla MORENA Baja California Sur: Carlos Mendoza Davis PAN Campeche: Carlos Miguel Aysa González acting governor PRI Chiapas: Rutilio Escandón MORENA Chihuahua: Javier Corral Jurado PAN Coahuila: Miguel Ángel Riquelme Solís PRI Colima: José Ignacio Peralta PRI Durango: José Rosas Aispuro PAN Guanajuato: Diego Sinhué Rodríguez Vallejo PAN Guerrero: Héctor Astudillo Flores PRI Hidalgo: Omar Fayad PRI Jalisco: Enrique Alfaro Ramírez MC Mexico City: Claudia Sheinbaum MORENA México (state): Alfredo del Mazo Maza PRI Michoacán: Silvano Aureoles Conejo PRD Morelos: Cuauhtémoc Blanco PES Nayarit: Antonio Echevarría García PAN Nuevo León: Jaime Rodríguez Calderón, Independent Oaxaca: Alejandro Murat Hinojosa PRI Puebla: Miguel Barbosa Huerta MORENA Querétaro: Francisco Domínguez Servién PAN Quintana Roo: Carlos Joaquín González PRD San Luis Potosí: Juan Manuel Carreras PRI Sinaloa: Quirino Ordaz Coppel PRI Sonora: Claudia Pavlovich Arellano PRI Tabasco: Adán Augusto López Hernández MORENA Tamaulipas: Francisco Javier García Cabeza de Vaca PAN Tlaxcala: Marco Antonio Mena Rodríguez PRI Veracruz: Cuitláhuac García Jiménez MORENA Yucatán: Mauricio Vila Dosal PAN Zacatecas: Alejandro Tello Cristerna PRI
LXIV Legislature of the Mexican Congress
President of the Senate Mónica Fernández Balboa MORENA
President of the Chamber of Deputies Dulce María Sauri Riancho PRI
Monthly events
January January 1 – Sixty tourists and crew are rescued when the Canuwa sinks from Quimixto beach in Puerto Vallarta. No one was injured. January 2 – Fireworks and bonfires cause the deaths of two adult women and a preteen girl in Topolobampo, Sinaloa. January 4 COVID-19 pandemic in Mexico: Dr. Hugo López-Gatell announces that the government has authorized use of the AstraZeneca vaccine. A fisherman dies after his boat collided on December 31, 2020, with the Farley Mowat operated by U.S.-based Sea Shepherd Conservation Society in the Gulf of California. The family says the man's boat was rammed by the Farley Mowat, and the conservationists claim their boat was attacked while removing illegal fishing nets. January 6 – Epiphany: Armed members of the Gulf Cartel are photographed delivering toys to children in Villa Progreso, Río Bravo, Tamaulipas. Members of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG) distributes toys in Bonifacio Moreno "El Aguaje", Aguililla, Michoacán. January 7 – Mexican drug war: Nine killed at a funeral in Celaya, five others killed in other parts of the city. January 8 Carlos Slim, with a fortune of US$62.1 billion, is the wealthiest person in Mexico, and María Asunción Aramburuzabala (US$5.8 billion), is the wealthiest woman, according to Forbes. COVID-19 pandemic in Mexico: Thirty-five medical students working in a hospital in Ecatepec, State of Mexico, have tested positive; one died on January 4. Students have complained of low salaries, lack of personal protective equipment (PPE), and the fact that they have not been vaccinated but bureaucrats have. A fire in the hotel zone of Tulum, Quintana Roo, burns 36 businesses; 1,000 evacuated. January 9 – A fire in the Mexico City Metro Offices kills one, injures 32, and shuts down half the rapid transit lines in the city. January 10 – Speaking from Manzanillo, Colima, AMLO says that control of the ports by the Mexican Navy does not mean "militarization" of the ports. January 11 A running gun battle leaves a police officer and nine gunmen dead in Santa Rosa de Lima (Villagrán), Guanajuato. Mexico and the United States agree to continue border restrictions until February 21. January 12 – A law prohibiting corporal punishment or humiliating treatment of children or teenagers goes into effect. January 13 – COVID-19 pandemic The Army and Navy begin distribution of 439,725 doses of vaccine for health workers at 879 hospitals across the country. Ciudad Nezahualcóyotl reports 100% occupation in its hospitals, and four patients with serious symptoms of COVID-19 are turned away. January 14 – Attorney General Alejandro Gertz Manero announces that General Salvador Cienfuegos, former Secretary of National Defense (2012–2018) will not be charged for drug offenses due to a lack of evidence. January 16 – COVID-19 pandemic: For the second day in a row, record-breaking 20,000 new cases are reported. A near-record 1,219 more deaths were also reported. January 18 – Twelve bodies whose hands were tied are found along a road in Las Choapas, Veracruz. January 21 – The Mexican National Guard stops a truck with 130 Central American migrants in Veracruz. January 22 AMLO announces that private companies and the states will be allowed to purchase vaccines against COVID-19. Bank accounts of Juan Ramón Collado, former lawyer for ex-president Enrique Peña Nieto, and 22 other Mexican investors, with a value of €2 billion (MXN $48 billion), are seized in Andorra for financial fraud. January 23 – Nineteen burned bodies are found in Camargo Municipality, Tamaulipas, likely victims of drug violence. January 24 – President López Obrador announces he has COVID-19. Interior Secretary Olga Sánchez Cordero will be taking over for him in his daily news conferences. January 25 The 2020 Mexican census reveals there are 120 million people in the country with a median age of 29. 1.2 million are foreign born (800,000 in the United States), and 7.4 million people speak an indigenous language. The State of Mexico, with 17 million people, is the most populous; Colima, with 732,000, is the least. COVID-19 pandemic: The death toll passes 150,000. January 26 – A pack of dogs attacks and kills two adult kangaroos and a joey in La Pastora Zoo in Monterrey. January 30 – Four homes collapse and 35 are near collapse, displacing 50 families in colonia 3 de Octubre, delegación Sánchez Taboada, Tijuana because of heavy rains and flooding. The area was declared high risk in 2019.
February February 2 – CFE pardons thousands of debts going back 26 years worth MXN $11 billion in Tabasco. February 3 – Twelve police officers are arrested in the relation to the January 24 massacre of migrants in Camargo Municipality, Tamaulipas. February 5 – A riot breaks out at Distribuidor Vial San Antonio in CDMX after police try to break up a demonstration by cyclists who were protesting after a Metrobús ran over a bicyclist. Eleven police officers are arrested. February 10 – AMLO and other officials take a fifteen-minute Air Force inaugural flight from the Benito Juárez International Airport to the Santa Lucía Airport. February 14 – AMLO pays homage to Vicente Guerrero in Cuilapan de Guerrero, Oaxaca, but he confuses Guerrero and José María Morelos. American civil rights leader Martin Luther King III addresses the need for Mexico to reconcile itself with its past of slavery. February 15 Temperatures as low as are recorded as shortages of natural gas lead to blackouts in Nuevo León, Coahuila, Tamaulipas, and Chihuahua along the Texas border. Five million are left in the dark. Over a dozen people have died in Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua; Río Bravo and Matamoros, Tamaulipas; and Monterrey, Nuevo León; because of winter storms. February 16 COVID-19: Mexico passes two million confirmed coronavirus cases and 175,000 deaths, third highest in the world. Sixteen people are arrested for kidnapping in Veracruz, including former beauty queen Laura Mojica Romero, 25. February 17 – AMLO says Mexico will increase the use of oil and coal as well as purchasing three shiploads of natural gas to deal with power shortages. Periodic local outages will continue through February 21. February 18 AMLO asks people to save energy. Ford Motor Company, Volkswagen, and Audi reduce production or close plants due to gas shortages. 120,000 employees of 30 companies in Ciudad Juárez lose their jobs in restaurants and factories due to gas shortages. February 19 President AMLO announces that rescue of the 65 missing bodies from the 2006 Pasta de Conchos mine disaster has begun. Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro offers to sell natural gas to Mexico despite the blockade. February 21 – A Learjet 45 belonging to the Air Force crashes before landing at El Lencero Airport in Xalapa. 102 aircraft belonging to SEDENA have crashed in since 2006, 48% in the drug war. February 24 Ceremony honoring 200 years of the Plan de Iguala The plaza of Iguala is plastered with narcomantas (messages from drug cartels) in anticipation of a visit by Presidents López Obrador and Alberto Fernández of Argentina. The FGR issues a warrant to arrest Raúl Beyruti, president of GINgroup, for activities related to organized crime. Beyruti is accused of hiding MXN $34 billion from 92 outsourcing companies. February 25 – Twenty-seven migrants seeking asylum in the United States are allowed to leave their makeshift camp in Matamoros, Tamaulipas and cross the border to make their cases. Some people were allowed to cross from Tijuana to San Ysidro, California last week. February 26 – A court rules that Rosario Robles′ offer to reveal everything she knows about the Estafa Maestra (″Master Scam″) in return for a reduced sentence is invalid because she refused to repay the MXN $5 billion she is accused of stealing. February 27 – The Secretariat of Environment and Natural Resources (SEMARNAT) announced that it may reduce the protected area for the vaquita in the Sea of Cortés as there are only ten of the tiny porpoises left and it may never recuperate its historical range. The announcement comes two months after a fishing boat was deliberately sunk, killing a Mexican fisherman, during Sea Shepherd Conservation Society operations. February 28 – Mexico and the European Union (EU) sign an agreement, part of the Arms Trade Treaty (ATT), to control the illicit entry of guns into Mexico. It is estimated that between 250,000 and 280,000 firearms are imported by organized crime every year.
March March 2 – Pemex and Braskem Idesa renegotiate their contract for natural gas, saving Pemex MXN $13.749 billion. March 8 Metal walls measuring installed in Mexico City's Zócalo to protect historic buildings are turned into a shrine on International Women's Day. Demonstrators also express their rejection of Felix Salgado as a candidate for governor of Guerrero. Sixty-two police officers and 19 civilians are injured (ten seriously) as 20,000 demonstrate in Mexico City. There were demonstrations in every state. Writer and diplomat Andrés Roemer, who has been accused of sexual harassment and rape, seals his mansion in Colonia Roma off from the street with large wooden plates. March 9 – Cuauhtémoc Gutiérrez de la Torre (PRI), 52, is arrested and charged with attempted sexual exploitation, false advertising, and criminal conspiracy. March 10