According to the AP news agency, it doesn’t seem like it was a joke when Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador posted a mysterious photo on Twitter on Friday.
It shows what looks like a figure with glowing eyes and some kind of hood or halo, sitting in the darkness of the night up in a tree.
“Everything is mysterious,” wrote López Obrador, who in 2018 won the presidency as the candidate of the left-wing alliance Morena.
Mocked and praised
In the Twitter message that accompanies the photo, the president writes that it “appears to be a aluxe» – an elf or forest spirit from the ancient Maya culture of Mexico’s indigenous people.
IS IT GOING FINE? Many people wonder what President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador really does. Photo: NTB Scanpix
sea view
The message had been re-tweeted 4,400 times on Sunday morning, causing many to wonder what is going on with the Mexican president.
“Whose hands is this country in the hands of…”, writes one.
“The Aluxes are as real as your successes,” writes another.
Others defend the president.
“What a beautiful picture, President. Thank you for saving our roots. We are moving towards victory”, writes one of his followers.
Mischievous “Aluxes”
López Obrador – AMLO as the Mexicans call him – has also previously shown interest in the Mayan culture, which lives on through the language and a renaissance of the ancient religion.
In the same Twitter message, he posted another photo, of a sculpture from the archaeological excavations at Ek Balam on the Yucatan Peninsula, from before the Spanish conquest in the 16th century.
AMLO wrote that the photos were taken this week, by an engineer, in connection with the construction of the Tren Maya (“Maya train”) project.
Train the Maya Project is a 1,550 kilometer long railway line through the states of Chiapas, Tabasco, Campeche, Yucatán and Quintana Roo on the Yucatan Peninsula, well equipped for tourism.
The Aluxes in the Mayan tradition are according to AP small, mischievous creatures that live in forests and fields and like to play tricks on people. Maybe the president is trying something like that, with his elf image?
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