Events of 2019 in Mexico. The article also lists the most important political leaders during the year at both federal and state levels and includes a brief year-end summary of major social and economic issues.
Incumbents President and cabinet President: Andres Manuel López Obrador MORENA
Interior Secretary (SEGOB): Olga María del Carmen Sánchez Cordero Secretary of Foreign Affairs (SRE): Marcelo Ebrard Casaubón Secretary of the Treasury (SHCP): Carlos Manuel Urzúa Macías, until July 9, 2019 Arturo Herrera, starting July 10, 2019 Secretary of Economy (SE): Graciela Márquez Colín Secretary of Energy (SENER): Norma Rocío Nahle García Secretary of Agriculture (SADER): Víctor Villalobos Secretary of Labor (STPS): Luisa María Alcalde Luján Education Secretary (SEP): Esteban Moctezuma Communications Secretary (SCT): Javier Jiménez Espriú Secretary of the Environment (SEMARNAT) Josefa González-Blanco Ortiz-Mena, until May 25, 2019) Víctor Manuel Toledo, starting May 27, 2019 Tourism Secretary (SECTUR): Miguel Torruco Marqués Secretary of the Civil Service (FUNCION PUBLICA): Irma Sandoval-Ballesteros Secretary of Health (SALUD): Jorge Alcocer Varela Secretary of Agrarian Development and Urban Planning (SEDATU): Román Guillermo Meyer Secretary of Welfare (BIENESTAR9: María Luisa Albores González Secretary of Culture (CULTURA): Alejandra Frausto Guerrero Secretary of Defense (SEDENA): Luis Cresencio Sandoval Secretary of Navy (SEMAR): José Rafael Ojeda Durán Secretary of Security: Alfonso Durazo Montaño Attorney General of Mexico (FGR): Alejandro Gertz Manero
Supreme Court
President of the Supreme Court: Arturo Zaldívar Lelo de Larrea (since January 2, 2019)
Governors
Aguascalientes: Martín Orozco Sandoval Baja California: Francisco Vega de Lamadrid , until October 31 Jaime Bonilla MORENA, starting November 1Bonilla Gobernador Baja California Sur: Carlos Mendoza Davis, Campeche: Alejandro Moreno Cárdenas , until June 13 Carlos Miguel Aysa González, acting governor , starting June 13 Chiapas: Rutilio Escandón MORENA Chihuahua: Javier Corral Jurado Coahuila: Miguel Ángel Riquelme Solís PRI Colima: José Ignacio Peralta PRI Distrito Federal: Claudia Sheinbaum MORENA Durango: José Rosas Aispuro Guanajuato: Diego Sinhué Rodríguez Vallejo Guerrero: Héctor Astudillo Flores PRI Hidalgo: Omar Fayad PRI Jalisco: Enrique Alfaro Ramírez, Independent 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: Jesús Rodríguez Almeida Interim governor PAN, until January 21 Guillermo Pacheco Pulido Acting governor PRI, January 21 – July 31 Miguel Barbosa Huerta MORENA, starting August 1. Querétaro: Francisco Domínguez Servién PAN Quintana Roo: Carlos Joaquín González PAN San Luis Potosí: Juan Manuel Carreras PRI Sinaloa: Quirino Ordaz Coppel PRI Sonora: Claudia Pavlovich Arellano PRI Tabasco: Adán Augusto López Hernández MORENA, starting January 1 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 Martí Batres (Morena) MORENA, until September 1, 2019 Mónica Fernández Balboa MORENA, starting September 1, 2019
President of the Chamber of Deputies Porfirio Muñoz Ledo MORENA, until September 3 Laura Angélica Rojas Hernández PAN, starting September 5
Events
January January: Yalitza Aparicio, star of Alfonso Cuarón's 2018 film Roma, appears on the cover of Vogue México. January 1: New Year's Day. Three new autonomous indigenous municipalities added to the state of Morelos. IWRG 23rd Anniversary Show wrestling show in Naucalpan, State of Mexico. Sin Piedad (2019) is held in Mexico City. January 3: Mayor Alejandro Aparicio Santiago of Tlaxiaco, Oaxaca was shot dead just hours after being sworn in. Four others were injured. A suspect was arrested in what appears to be a drug-related shooting. A temple built between 1000 and 1260 CE and dedicated to Xipe Totec (Flayed Lord) is discovered in Ndachjian-Tehuacan, Puebla. January 18: An oil pipeline explodes in the state of Hidalgo. One hundred and thirty-four people were killed. January 20: The body of journalist Rafael Murua Manriquez was found in Baja California Sur as the country sets new homicide record of 33,341 murders (up 33%) in 2018. January 21: An earthquake with a magnitude of 5.8 hits 88 km southwest of Salina Cruz, Oaxaca. Guillermo Pacheco Pulido is named interim governor of Puebla. January 22: 21:06 local time, Popocateptl volcano spews ash up 4 km high. January 31: The Guerra de Dinastías (literally "War of the Dynasties" or "War of the Families") wrestling event takes place in Naucalpan, State of Mexico.
February February 1: An earthquake with a magnitude of 6.6 hit off the coast of Chiapas. February 2: Guillermo Padrés Elías, former Governor of Sonora (PAN) 2009-2015 is released from prison after his 2016 arrest for allegedly embezzling US$8.9 million. February 4: Constitution Day celebrated. February 12: Joaquín "El Chapo" Guzmán, Mexico's most wanted criminal, was sentenced to life imprisonment in Brooklyn, NY on multiple drug chagres. Guzmán had previously alleged that both presidents Felipe Calderón and Enrique Peña Nieto had taken millions in bribes from the Sinaloa Cartel. February 15: "Bahidorá" music festival begins in Las Estacas, Morelos.*March 16: "Vive Latino" music festival begins in Mexico City. February 16: Radio announcer Reynaldo López and reporter Carlos Cota were shot in Hermosillo, Sonora, in an attack that left López dead and Cota in critical condition. February 17: Five people have been killed and five more wounded after gunmen burst into a bar Cancun and opened fire. The gunmen are said to belong to the Jalisco New Generation cartel. February 18: An earthquake with a magnitude of 4.7 strikes 46 km west of Colima. 2019 Morelos Open professional tennis tournament begins in Cuernavaca. February 19: Samir Flores, a leading opponent of the construction of a thermoelectric plant in Yecapixtla, Morelos, was murdered outside his home in Amilcingo, Temoac. Earlier in the week, Rubén Fajardo, another opponent of the plant, was murdered in Jiutepec. February 21: A German court fines two ex-employers of German gun maker Heckler & Koch for illegal gun sales to Mexico. February 23 & February 24: Voters in Morelos, Puebla, and Tlaxcala approve the construction of a thermoelectric power plant in Huexca, Yecapixtla, Morelos (33,174–22,355). February 23: EDC music festival begins at Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez in San Luis Potosi. February 25: Roma, the Mexican movie directed by Alfonso Cuarón, wins Oscars for best foreign language film, best director, and cinematography. 2019 Abierto Mexicano Telcel professional tennis tournament begins in Acapulco. February 26: The government auctions off 196 luxury and bullet-proof cars, bringing in US$3.25 million. February 27: Alejandro González Iñárritu, a Mexican film director (Amores perros and Birdman), is named president of the jury at the Cannes Film Festival. February 28: Two people were killed and 10 wounded in a shooting in Sofia bar in Cuernavaca, Morelos. Several popular bars and nightclubs were subsequently closed in protest against insecurity. The police chief was fired on March 2 for the same reason.
March March 2: "Nrmal" music festival in the Deportivo Estado Mayor Presidencial in the State of Mexico. March 4: Yukaima González, a Wixarika indigenous becomes the first Indigeous to be chosen queen of the Nayarit fair. March 5: Mexican scientists discover a cave at the Mayan ruins of Chichen Itza containing around 200 ceramic vessels in nearly perfect condition. They are believed to be 1,000 years old. March 6: Nuevo Leon passes a law to prohibit abortion by asserting the right to life from conception. March 8: A ruptured sewer line causes a health alert in Puerto Vallarta, Jalisco. The 48" sewage line collapsed on March 3. 23 Guatemalan immigrants, including two children, are killed and 33 injured as a bus turns over in Chiapas. 594 paintings that were stolen from Mexico in the 1960s and 1970s are returned by the government of Italy. March 9: An armed group bursts into a bar in Salamanca, Guanajuato) during government operation against El Marro, leader of the cartel Santa Rosa de Lima, dedicated to the theft of gasoline in Mexico. Fifteen killed, five wounded. March 10: At least seven people are executed in Colonia Clavijero, Puebla during a war between the Jalisco Nueva Generación and Los Sinaloenses cartels. The 2019 Rally Mexico in Guanajuato ends in victory for the French team. March 11: 23 migrants kidnapped from a bus in Tamaulipas. March 13: The U.S. State Department issues an advisory about "Spring Break" in Mexico. March 14: At 2:30 p.m. the Popocatépetl volcano sent a column of ashes five kilometers into the air. A smaller explosion occurred four days later, March 18. About 20 SUVs supposedly belong to the Jalisco New Generation Cartel participated in the Carnaval parade in the Xalapa, Veracruz. Videos of hooded men carrying heavy-caliber firearms circulated in social media. March 15: Santiago Barroso is the 4th journalist killed this year. He worked for 'San Luis Hoy' on 91.1 FM Río Digital in San Luis Río Colorado, Sonora. March 16: "Vive Latino" music festival begins in Mexico City. The 23rd Rey de Reyes (2019) professional wrestling event took place in Puebla. March 17: Dorian Peralta, a business professor at Universidad Autónoma de La Laguna in Torreón, Coahuila, set a new record after giving class for 72 hours, 22 minutes, 36 seconds straight. The accomplishment will be listed in the Guinness World Records. March 18: Benito Juarez's birthday celebrated (Monday). Mexican oil expropriation March 19: 21:38 local time, fragments of the dome of Popocateptl shoot within 1aone and a half-mile radius. Due to continuing activity, on March 28, based on the analysis of the available information, the Scientific Advisory Committee of the Popocatépetl volcano recommended changing the phase of the Yellow Volcanic Warning Light Phase 2 to Yellow Phase 3, which is a preventive measure against the observed changes. Viridiana Mendoza López, a student in the National Polytechnic Institute of Mexico, died on the campus, raising questions about the emergency services for students. March 21: Between 5:31 and 10:30 a.m., forty-two earthquakes with magnitudes ranging from 1.9 to 4.4, were reported in Oaxaca. In a landmark decision for freedom of the press, the Supreme Court rules that the attorney general of Veracruz cannot block the Twitter account of a journalist. March 22: "Pa'l Norte" music festival begins in Parque Funidora, Monterrey. The Senate bans marriage involving children younger than 18. March 23: The Diablos Rojos del México (Red Devils) open their new Alfredo Harp Helú baseball stadium in Mexico City. March 24: Mexican security forces arrest Agustín Medina Soto, a suspected Santa Rosa de Lima cartel operator who worked as a liaison with authorities in Celaya, Guanajuato. A leak from a clandestine gasoline operation is detected in Tlahuelilpan, Hidalgo two months after the Tlahuelilpan pipeline explosion that left 135 dead. March 25: President Andrés Manuel López Obrador sends letters to King Felipe VI of Spain and Pope Francis demanding they apologize for the atrocities committed during the Conquest of Mexico. Three municipal employees in Salvatierra, Guanajuato are gunned down in their car. Archeologists say that a new discovery at the base of the Templo Mayor in Mexico City could lead to the discovery of an Aztec emperor's tomb.