Mexican senators “knock the stuffing out of Donald Trump”

Senators from Mexico’s left-leaning Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD) celebrated Donald Trump’s election win at their Christmas party by bashing a life-size piñata of the soon-to-be United States president.

During the party, held on Tuesday night in a hotel in the Mexican capital, PRD president Miguel Barbosa encouraged his audience to send a rousing “greeting to Donald,” accompanied by traditional cat calls (widely understood in Mexico to mean “screw your mother”), an expression some local commentators suggested was more appropriate for a bar or angry drivers in a traffic jam than some of the best-paid elected officials in the country.

But Barbosa was unrepentant after the story broke: “These are popular and spontaneous forms of expressing the rejection we feel toward Trump,” he said. “It wasn’t meant to be a provocation but simply our way of showing our feelings, which are shared by many Mexicans,” he told EL PAÍS.

“We wish his attacks were like these, festive and allegorical, rather than those he has launched since he was a candidate, continually attacking Mexico,” he added.

The PRD currently runs Mexico City Hall, as well as governing three states and taking part in with the pro-business National Action Party (PAN) in three other provinces. Piñatas are sold at street markets, with effigies of Donald Trump proving particularly popular at Christmas parties throughout Mexico this year.

English version by Dyane Jean-François.