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2021 in Mexican politics and government

Events pertaining to 2021 in Mexican politics and government.

Monthly events

January

February

  • February 3
  • The National Electoral Institute (INE) issues a statement saying that it is not prudent to postpone the June 6, 2021 Mexican legislative election and doing so could even trigger a constitutional crisis by delaying the LXV Legislature of the Mexican Congress.
  • INE approves a pilot program allowing some inmates held in preventative prison to vote in the June 6 elections.
  • February 6 – Leopoldo Maldonado Gutiérrez, director of Artículo 19, an organization dedicated to freedom of expression, denounces the publication of a modified cartoon by Rafael Pineda, ″Rapé″, in the official government Twitter account as ″manipulation of information″. ″Rapé″ noted that he had not authorized the publication of the altered image, which showed President López Obrador as a baseball player hitting a home run by defeating the SARS-CoV-2 virus. The tweet was taken down.
  • February 9 – In response to a petition by Enrique Krauze, Héctor Aguilar Camín, José Woldenberg, and other intellectuals that infrastructure projects be put on hold to pay for COVID-19 vaccines, López Obrador noted that Mexico has already appropriated MXN $32 billion for that purpose; combined with healthy finances, this is more than sufficient.
  • February 16
  • Esteban Moctezuma takes the oath of office as Ambassador to the United States.
  • The Instituto Nacional de Migración (National Migration Institute, INM) has arrested 1,189 people, 30% of them minors, in fifty operations in the last three weeks for illegal immigration. Most were headed for the United States.
  • February 18
  • Former president Vicente Fox criticizes President López Obrador′s call for energy savings following massive power outages.
  • Calls increase for MORENA to withdraw the candidacy of Félix Salgado Mecedonio for governor of Guerrero.
  • February 22
  • The Auditoría Superior de la Federación (Superior Auditor of the Federation, ASF) says it has found a number of irregularities and deficiencies in the Secretariat of the Civil Service (SFP), the branch of the government that is supposed to crack down on corruption, since 2019. The audit says closing the Mexico City Texcoco Airport (NAIM) cost MXN $232 billion more than estimated in April 2019. López Obrador said, ″I have other data.″
  • The government gives Pemex a USD $3.54 billion subsidy.
  • Argentine President Alberto Fernández begins an official visit.
  • February 23 – Alfonso Ramírez Cuéllar, former leader of MORENA, proposes a wealth tax based on the Argentine model.
  • February 26 – MORENA withdraws its support for Félix Salgado Macedonio, candidate for governor of Guerrero but declares he is innocent of charges of sex abuse and rape.

March

  • March 1 – President López Obrador and U.S. President Joe Biden hold a virtual summit, where they discuss vaccination, migration, security issues, the economy, and energy.
  • March 5 – Political campaigns begin.
  • March 7 – Families and other demonstrators cover a metal barrier erected to protect the National Palace with signs, photographs, and flowers in memory of women who have been victims of violence.
  • 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. The Hidalgo metro station was closed until further notice because of demonstrations.
  • Police hunt down demonstrators in Aguascalientes after violence breaks out. Thirty women, including a 13-year-old girl, plus three men are arrested from a crowd of 6,000. There are demonstrations in every state.
  • , commentator of the program De Buena Fe on Canal Once of the Instituto Politécnico Nacional (IPN), resigns from MORENA due to the candidacy of Felix Salgado Macedonio in Guerrero.
  • March 9 – President López Obrador endorses the feminist cause but says the crowd in the Zócalo on March 8 was small due to violence backed by conservatives.
  • March 10
  • Josefina Vázquez Mota, presidential candidate for PAN in 2012, accuses former presidents Fox (2000-2006) and Calderon (2006-2012) of gender violence.
  • NGOs criticize feminists who particiapate in violent demonstrations. Mujeres Libres y Soberanas said, ″No podemos reclamar derechos generando violencia, porque de esa forma se originan más asperezas″ (″We cannot claim rights by generating violence, because that originates more roughness″). Verónica Camargo of #NiUnaMenos, said, ″No me siento representada cuando una mujer reclama con odio, violencia e ira″ (″I do not feel represented when a woman complains with hatred, violence and anger″).
  • March 15 – A group of demonstratorts shout down Claudia Sheinbaum in downtown Mexico City, demanding release of 139 motorcyclists arrested on March 5 in Tepito.
  • March 22 – Members of the Frente de Pueblos en Defensa del Agua y la Tierra de Morelos, Puebla y Tlaxcala (″People′s Front in Defense of Water and Land of Morelos, Puebla and Tlaxcala″) protest on World Water Day to demand that the government guarantee that water from the Cuautla River not be used for the Morelos Integral Project (PIM) thermoelectric plant of the Federal Electricity Commission (CFE).
  • March 24 – Bolivian President Luis Alberto Arce Catacora arrives for an official visit.
  • March 25
  • AMLO appeals to the Electoral Court of the Federal Judicial Branch to block a ruling by the Instituto Nacional Electoral to prevent MORENA from achieving a majority in the Chamber of Deputies.
  • Accompanied by Bolivian President Luis Alberto Arce Catacora, AMLO pays homage to 504 years of indigenous resistance to colonialism by the inhabitants of Chakán Putum, Campeche.
  • March 29
  • Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele demands justice for Victoria Salazar, a Salvadoran immigrant murdered by police in Tulum.
  • Seven Mexican soldiers are being held in La Esperanza, Tacaná, San Marcos Department, Guatemala, after a 30-year-old Guatemalan was killed in Mazapa de Madero, Chiapas. The incident is being investigated as a murder.
  • March 30 – The United States Department of State calls fake news attacks by Sanjuana Martínez, director of Notimex, on ″Artículo 19″ and ″Signa Lab″ an attack on human rights. AMLO defends Martínez and points out that censorship does not exist in Mexico.

April

  • April 4 – Campaigns for governor officially begin in Baja California, Baja California Sur, Chihuahua, Zacatecas, Nayarit, Sinaloa, Michoacán, Querétaro, and Tlaxcala.
  • April 22 – Mexico participates in the Earth Day world summit on climate change convoked by U.S. president Joe Biden.

May

June

Scheduled and anticipated events

History by government agency

Note: This section is provided for updates by government body or agency in a narrative format.

Banxico

See Banking and finance below.

Federal Electric Commission

The Federal Electric Commission (CFE) has come under scrutiny after massive blackouts on December 30, 2020, and related to the February 13–17, 2021 North American winter storm. The MRN party proposed reforming the Electricity Industry Law to the Congress of the Union. The proposal would reverse the energy reform approved under former president Peña Nieto. There are four priorities: 1) hydroelectric energy, 2) other energy produced by CFE (nuclear, geothermal, thermoelectric, and combined cycle gas turbines), 3) wind and solar energy produced by individuals, and 4) other. CFE contends that subsidies to renewable energy ″bleed″ billions of pesos. Critics say the proposed law is an attack on private industry and would violate both the Paris Agreement and the United States–Mexico–Canada Agreement.

The reform was passed and published in the Diario Oficial de la Federación on March 9, 2021, but a judge suspended it at the request of ″Parque Solar Orejana″ on March 10. President López Obrador called for an investigation.

Federal legislature

History by issue

Note: This section is provided for issue-based overviews in narrative format.

Banking and finance

On December 14, 2020, the government introduced proposed changes to allow the Bank of Mexico (Banxico) to make it capture U.S. dollars in cash. Cynically called the Ley Monreal, because of its support by Senator Ricardo Monreal MORENA, critics worry it will lead to an increase in money laundering and decrease the bank's autonomy. Further, Gabriel Casillas, president of the Comité de Estudios Económicos del Instituto Mexicano de Ejecutivos de Finanzas ("Committee of Economic Studies of the Mexican Institute of Finance Executives″, IMEF) says the primary beneficiary of the law will be Banco Azteca, owned by billionaire Ricardo Salinas Pliego. This is because Banco Azteca receives large quantities of dollars sent to families by Mexican expatriates living in the United States, but the bank does not have formal ties with an American banking institution.

Debate on the bill was postponed until January 2021. On January 21 President Lopez Obrador announced that he opposed a provision supported by Banco Azteca that would make it easier for banks to sell excess U.S. dollars to Banixco, although he said that the problem of excessive fees charged for sending money from the United to familities in Mexico persists.

Corruption

Crime

Legalization of Marijuana

After the Supreme Court (SCJN) ruled in 2018 that prohibition of cannabis (marijuana) was unconstitutional, the legislature was given until December 15, 2020 to approve a new law. The Senate approved a law regulating cultivation, distribution, production, sale, and use of marijuana on November 19, 2020, but the Chamber of Deputies was unable to reach an agreement and the deadline was extended to February 2021.

Javier Molina, analyst of the investment firm eToro, notes that legalization of recreational marijuana will increase tax collection, but Alfredo Neme, representative of the National Cannabis Council (CCN), warns that the bill was written will be a boon for large pharmaceutical companies and leaves out public-private associations. New Frontier, an organization that analyzes legal marijuana markets estimates the Mexican market at 2.3 million consumers with a value of USD $3.2 billion (MXN $65.4 billion). Neme said there is a potential investment of USD $6 to $10 billion in investment from 40 companies, which would also boost the creation of formal jobs. The Chamber of Deputies approved recreational, medical, and scientific marijuana use on March 10, 2021, with a vote of 316-129. Recreational marijuana would be reserved for individuals over 18 who must register for its use.

Legalization of poppy growing for medicinal purposes is also being considered.

Economics

Education

Elections

The July 2021 Mexican legislative election promises to be a battle between PAN, PRI, and PRD on one hand vs. MORENA and PANAL on the other.

President Andrés Manuel López Obrador has proposed referendums on his progress since 2018 and on criminal trials of his predecessors Enrique Peña Nieto, Felipe Calderón, Vicente Fox, Ernesto Zedillo, and Carlos Salinas de Gortari.

Health

Migration

See also

Specific situations and issues

References

External links