Mexicans to burn Donald Trump effigy in Easter ritual

[MEXICO CITY] Some Mexicans have found a new way to blow off steam over Donald Trump - creating an effigy of the White House hopeful to burn in an Easter ritual.

It took Felipe Linares a week to make the more than 2m papier-mache likeness of Trump wearing a blue suit, white shirt and red tie in his Mexico City workshop.

The smiling figure will go up in flames on Saturday during the "Burning of Judas," a tradition in which Mexicans torch effigies of the devil, politicians and others they dislike on the eve of Easter Sunday.

"We are going to burn Trump now because we don't like him. He speaks ill of Mexicans," Mr Linares said, referring to the real estate tycoon's description of Mexican migrants as criminals and rapists.

He attached fireworks to the figure's feet to add noise to the pyrotechnics.

Mr Linares has been making effigies for more than 50 years at a workshop founded by his father in the early 20th century.

This year, he also made likenesses of the devil, President Enrique Pena Nieto and Mexican goalkeeper Guillermo Ochoa.

Mr Linares will Mr burn Trump and the others on a street on Saturday.

Other Mexicans have made pinatas resembling Mr Trump and one artist produced shirts decorated with his image along with a vulgarity insulting the Republican frontrunner.

Some 61 per cent of Mexicans hold a negative opinion of Mr Trump - who has vowed to force Mexico to pay for a huge wall across the US border to stop illegal migration - an opinion poll found this month.

Pena Nieto has slammed Mr Trump's rhetoric as reminiscent of Adolf Hitler's and Benito Mussolini's.

AFP