2021 in Mexican politics and government

Events pertaining to 2021 in Mexican politics and government.

Monthly events January January 1 The minimum wage is increased 15% to MXN $123.22 generally and MXN $185.56 along the northern border. Single-use plastics are banned in Mexico City (CDMX). January 2 Governor Carlos Mendoza Davis PAN of Baja California Sur vetoes the 2021 state budget. The farm lobby criticizes Andrés Manuel López Obrador's decision to ban genetically modified corn, and organic farmers praise it as a move that should protect smaller farmers. January 4 – President López Obrador offers political asylum to WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, who is in the United Kingdom pending extradition to the United States for trial on espionage charges. January 5 – Tatiana Clouthier Carrillo becomes Secretary of Economy (SE) nearly a month after being named to the post. January 11 – The Instituto Nacional Electoral (National Electoral Institute, INE) rules that President López Obrador′s daily press conferences (Mañaneras) are political propaganda and have to end on April 4 when campaigning begins. Exceptions can be made in cases of public health (including the pandemic), education, and civil protection. January 12 Restaurant owners in Mexico City, the State of Mexico, hold cacerolazos (protest involving the beating of kitchen utensils) against the closure of restaurants. 13,500 restaurants in Mexico City and 10,000 in the State of Mexico have closed since the beginning of the pandemic. Restaurants and similar establishments are believed to be where virus spread occurs most readily. Juan Antonio Acosta Cano, deputy in Congress of Guanajuato (PAN) and pre-candidate for municipal president of Santa Cruz de Juventino Rosas) is assassinated. January 13 – President López Obrador introduces plans to eliminate private prisons. The government pays an average MXN$3,500 (USD$177) per day for each prisoner. January 14 – President López Obrador promises to protect free speech against blockage by social media outlets. January 15 – INE approves the electoral coalitions Va Por México (PAN PRI PRD) and Juntos hacemos historia (MORENA PT PVEM). January 16 – Facebook puts a warning on a post where Cardinal Juan Sandoval Iñiguez (Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Guadalajara, 1994-2011) lies about the COVID-19 vaccines. January 18 Ricardo Anaya (PAN) announces his candidacy for president in 2024. Foreign Policy reported that former ambassador Roberta S. Jacobson would be in charge of Mexico–United States border affairs at the National Security Council under President Joe Biden. January 20 President López Obrador calls upon President Joe Biden to quickly resolve migration issues for Mexicans living in the United States, including the granting of dual nationality. Christopher Landau ends his term as United States Ambassador to Mexico. January 22 U.S. President Joe Biden makes his first two official telephone calls to foreign leaders to Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador. Biden and López Obrador discuss immigration, COVID-19, and other topics. Twitter blocks several accounts related to the Fourth Transformation because they broke rules related to spam. January 24 – President López Obrador announces he has a mild symptom of COVID-19. Interior Secretary Olga Sánchez Cordero will take over for him in his daily news conferences. January 25 – Deputy Gerardo Fernández Noroña (PT) apologizes to Adriana Dávila Fernández (PAN) regarding a comment he made in 2019 suggesting she had links to organized crime. January 26 Environmental groups led by the Global Alliance for Alternatives to Incineration (GAIA) demand that Mexico comply with the Basel Convention on the Control of Transboundary Movements of Hazardous Wastes and Their Disposal in relation to the importation of dangerous plastic waste. SEMARNAT reported the importation of 8,312,812 tons of plastic waste between 2013 and August 2020 (90% from the United States), and a 29% increase of imports from January to August 2020. Senator Lilly Téllez (PAN) criticizes the government for its acquisition of 24 million doses of Sputnik V COVID-19 vaccine from Russia. The Russian embassy refuted charges that the vaccine is of poor quality, and Morena MORENA demanded an apology. January 29 – Authorities removed 150 empty tents from the Zócalo of Mexico City that had been installed as a protest in November 2020. Ten people were injured. January 31 – Hundreds, mostly women, march to demand justice for Mariana Sánchez Dávalos, a young doctor whose body was recently found in Nueva Palestina, Ocosingo, Chiapas. Marches took place in Tuxtla Gutiérrez, San Cristóbal de las Casas, and Tapachula.

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 June 6 2021 Mexican gubernatorial elections – Preliminary results from INE give MORENA or allies eleven states, PAN two, PVEM and MC one each. The big loser was PRI, which controlled eight governorships before the election. 2021 Mexican legislative election – Preliminary results from INE indicate that MORENA and its allies (PT and PVEM) received an absolute majority (50% + 1) but not the 2/3 required to amend the Constitution. Morena won about 197 seats on its own and PAN won about 111 seats, not including its allies PRI and PRD. 2021 Mexican local elections 2021 Coahuila elections June 9 – U.S. vice president Kamala Harris meets with AMLO to discuss immigration.

Scheduled and anticipated events August 21 – 2021 Mexican corruption trial referendum