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| 1997, Jan. 15 |
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| Mexico finished repaying its loan from the U.S. | 1 |
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| Feb. 6 |
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| Jesús Gutiérrez Rebollo was forced to resign as head of the National Institute to Combat Drugs and detained by police amid allegations that he accepted bribes from one of Mexico's top drug lords. The institute itself was subsequently abolished (April 30). | 2 |
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| July 6 |
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| The ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) lost its majority in the Chamber of Deputies. For the first time since the revolution of 1910, opposition parties would exercise significant influence in the federal government. Also in the balloting, Cuauhtémoc Cardenas of the left-leaning Democratic Revolutionary Party (PRD) won the mayoralty of Mexico City by a landslide. | 3 |
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| Dec. 22 |
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| Gunmen raided the Tzotzil Indian village of Acteal in Chiapas, killing 45 men, women, and children. The victims of the attack reportedly sympathized with, but were not members of, the Zapatista army (EZLN). | 4 |
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