The coastal island of Cozumel is arguably the top diving destination in the Western Hemisphere. Visitors from around the world flock to this scuba and snorkeling oasis 12 miles off the coast of Cancún to explore the 20-mile Mayan Reef, a sunken paradise of crystal, turquoise-blue water, brilliant tropical fish and unspoiled coral.
Cancún morphed from tiny jungle fishing village to major tourist destination within a few decades, and it continues to be one of the most popular – and most visually spectacular – places in Mexico. Located on the Yucatán peninsula, Cancún and its surrounding areas are a Caribbean vacationer’s nirvana.
Acapulco is back. In the 1980s and ’90s, many travelers had written off the “Pearl of the Pacific” as a tacky vestige of Love Boat-era excess and Spring Break hedonism. But after a billion-dollar makeover and an influx of investors, Acapulco is enjoying a second life as an upscale retreat for savvy Mexican and international tourists.
On Feb. 26, 2008, lawmakers approved new legislation that restricts cigarette smoking in public spaces. Violators will be heavily fined and sentenced to up to 36 hours in jail. The government reported that $642 million of healthcare costs are due to smoking-related diseases.
In May 2008, Attorney General Eduardo Medina Mora announced that over 4,000 people had been killed in drug-related violence since President Calderon took office—1,400 of the deaths occurred in 2008 alone.
In Aug. 2008, hundreds of thousands of protesters across the country marched for the more than 2,700 people who were killed and 300 kidnapped in drug-related violence since January 2008. In Dec. 2008, the number of killings registered between 1 January and 2 December was 5,376—a rise of 117% from the previous year. In Nov. 2008 alone, there were 943 drug-related murders.
In Dec. 2008, the U.S. released $197 million of a $400 million plan called the Merida Initiative to help Mexico fight the drug cartels, yet drug violence continued mostly unabated. In the first six weeks of 2009, an estimated 1,000 people were killed in drug-related violence.
Late April and early May 2009 brought a new challenge: a flu outbreak. A new strain of influenza, known as swine flu, originated in Mexico and spread to at least 24 other countries. The World Health Organization declared that a pandemic was a possibility. Originally, Swine Flu was thought to be quite dangerous, though as time passed, Mexican authorities said they may have overestimated the threat. As a precaution, the Mexican government shut down all nonessential business for five days starting on May 1, 2009. Other governments limited travel to and from Mexico.
In elections held on July 2, 2000, the PRI lost the presidency, ending 71 years of one-party rule. The new president, Vicente Fox Quesada of the conservative National Action Party (PAN), vowed tax reform, an overhaul of the legal system, and a reduction in power of the central government. By 2002, however, Fox had made little headway on his ambitious reform agenda. Disfavor with Fox was evident in 2003 parliamentary elections, when the PRI rebounded.
In 2004, a two-year investigation into the “dirty war,” which Mexico's authoritarian government waged against its opponents in the 1960s and 1970s, led to an indictment—later dropped—against former president Luis Echeverria for ordering the 1971 shooting of student protesters.
In 2005, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, the enormously popular mayor of Mexico City, emerged as a presidential candidate for the leftist Party of the Democratic Revolution. López Obrador seemed likely to defeat the party of the deeply unpopular incumbent, Vicente Fox. But in Oct. 2005, Felipe Calderón unexpectedly became the candidate of Fox's National Action Party (PAN), defeating Fox's chosen successor. By spring 2006, Felipe Calderón had caught up to López Obrador in opinion polls. In the July election, Calderón won 35.9% of the vote, a razor-thin margin over López Obrador, who received 35.3%. López Obrador appealed the election, but on Aug. 28, Mexico's top electoral court rejected López Obrador's allegations of fraud. His supporters held massive protest rallies before and after the verdict. Calderón was sworn in on Dec. 1.
Following World War II, the government emphasized economic growth. During the mid-1970s, under the leadership of President José López Portillo, Mexico became a major petroleum producer. By the end of Portillo's term, however, Mexico had accumulated a huge external debt because of the government's unrestrained borrowing on the strength of its petroleum revenues. The collapse of oil prices in 1986 cut Mexico's export earnings. In Jan. 1994, Mexico joined Canada and the United States in the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), with the plan to phase out all tariffs over a 15-year period, and in Jan. 1996, it became a founding member of the World Trade Organization (WTO).
In 1995, the U.S. agreed to prevent the collapse of Mexico's private banks. In return, the U.S. won virtual veto power over much of Mexico's economic policy. In 1997, in what observers called the freest elections in Mexico's history, the PRI lost control of the lower legislative house and the mayoralty of Mexico City in a stunning upset. To increase democracy, President Ernesto Zedillo said in 1999 that he would break precedent and not personally choose the next PRI presidential nominee. Several months later, Mexico held its first presidential primary, which was won by former interior secretary Francisco Labastida, Zedillo's closest ally among the candidates.
The years after the fall of the dictator Porfirio Diaz (1877–1880 and 1884–1911) were marked by bloody political-military strife and trouble with the U.S., culminating in the punitive U.S. expedition into northern Mexico (1916–1917) in unsuccessful pursuit of the revolutionary Pancho Villa. Since a brief civil war in 1920, Mexico has enjoyed a period of gradual agricultural, political, and social reforms. The Partido Nacional Revolucionario (PNR; National Revolutionary Party), dominated by revolutionary and reformist politicians from northern Mexico, was established in 1929; it continued to control Mexico throughout the 20th century and was renamed the Partido Revolucionario Institucional (PRI; Institutional Revolutionary Party) in 1946. Relations with the U.S. were disturbed in 1938 when all foreign oil wells were expropriated, but a compensation agreement was reached in 1941.
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