When the mayor of Pichucalco can’t make it to events, he sends a cardboard cutout of himself instead.
On Friday, photos of the mayor of Pichucalco, a town in Chiapas, began circulating on Facebook. Except, it wasn’t really him in the pictures. Unable to attend in the flesh, Moisés Aguilar Torres made an appearance in pasteboard. The images show community members alongside the papered politician, who is wearing khaki pants with a blue button-down shirt and raising his right fist high.
While the move was clever, his constituents weren’t very pleased. According to El Universal, more than 200 people showed up to the health function to meet the former nurse. Many came ready to hand the mayor, who was elected in 2018, proposals for community projects. Instead, they had to deliver their plans to city hall employees who presided over the event.
While some attendees expressed their frustration with Aguilar Torres on social media, the mayor’s team has continued to call the event a success and praised the politician’s work for his constituents.
“This is how our [mayor] takes actions for the benefit of [citizens] in health matters because serving is his commitment,” mayoral aide Jose Alejandro Bustamante Maza wrote on Facebook alongside photos of attendees with the life-sized cutout.
Neither Aguilar Torres nor members of his team have stated whether the mayor will ditch his cardboard twin or if it’ll continue to make appearances at functions he’s unable to take part in IRL.
