Today a president willing to break molds takes office in Colombia, Abelardo de la Espriella. The lawyer and businessman who decided to enter the political arena just a year ago intends to make it clear that his mandate will be different and that he will fulfill the commitments he made to his voters. He promised to defeat the left, terrorism, centralism, traditional parties, and to build the “miracle homeland.” And he wanted to start by filling the inaugural ceremony with gestures that symbolize change.
For the first time, the presidential inauguration will not take place in Bogotá, but will be held in Cali. “It represents the first step of a decentralization policy that will take the State to the regions,” explained the president-elect, who also chose the capital of Valle del Cauca for having suffered several terrorist attacks and still being threatened by guerrillas.
Gustavo Petro himself, the outgoing president, warned on his X account that the authorities had information about “dozens of tons of explosives” in Cali and other localities of Valle del Cauca. Hence the deployment of 11,100 members of the public force who must protect the city and the event, which will take place at the Arena of the Santiago de Cali University, a modern building with a capacity for 2,500 people.
As a result of tightening security measures, this Tuesday the police intercepted a bus loaded with 420 kilos of explosives on the Pan-American highway, near Cali, in the neighboring department of Cauca. Military intelligence points to the Jaime Martínez Front of the FARC planning to attack Police and Army facilities during the presidential inauguration, to sabotage it.
The King of Spain, Felipe VI; the presidents of Ecuador, Daniel Noboa; Argentina, Javier Milei; Chile, José Antonio Kast; Paraguay, Rodrigo Paz, among other Latin American leaders, almost all right-wing, are expected to attend. Nayib Bukele, president of El Salvador, very popular in Colombia, is sending his vice president, Félix Ulloa.
Although there was a rumor about the attendance of the US Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, given Abelardo de la Espriella’s closeness to the Trump Administration, the White House and the State Department have opted to send a large delegation headed by the next attorney general, Todd Blanche.
The uninvited and opponents
Apart from the choice of Cali, other decisions also mark the unique style that De la Espriella will imprint on his Presidency. The list of personalities he has not invited is one of them. He broke protocol by excluding Juan Manuel Santos, responsible for the 2016 peace agreement with the FARC and the consequent creation of the JEP (Special Jurisdiction for Peace), and Ernesto Samper, elected in 1994 with money from the Cali cartel and a virulent supporter of Petro. De la Espriella’s predecessors always counted on all former presidents.
And, as he proposed in his campaign to modify transitional justice, he did not invite the president of the JEP, Alejandro Ramelli, the only high court magistrate who will not be present. Paloma Valencia, the Democratic Center candidate who challenged him for the second round in the June elections, was also not invited. Her absence highlights the rift between sectors of Uribismo and Abelardismo due to the bitter confrontations they had during the campaign and the struggle to take control of the right wing.
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The National Electoral Council has just approved the legal status of Defenders for the Homeland, De la Espriella’s movement now turned into a political party that will fish in the same waters as the Uribistas. In any case, the Democratic Center has declared itself an ally of the Government and one of its own, Honorio Henríquez, as president of the Senate, will be in charge of swearing in the new dignitary.
The new opponents, for their part, continue not to accept the verdict of the polls, supported by the European Union and international organizations. In an unprecedented attitude in Colombia, neither the parliamentary group led by Iván Cepeda nor other congressmen who support them, from the Green Party, will participate in any of the Government change events. They consider De la Espriella an “illegitimate” president for reasons ranging from also holding US nationality to accusing him of “making bad decisions,” although he has not started governing, to alleging he won the elections fraudulently, without any evidence to prove it. To record their position, they called their followers to hold sit-ins in Cali, Bogotá, and Barranquilla.
In the Valle capital, they will gather at Puerto Resistencia, the square where they erected a commemorative monument to the violent national strike of 2021 that suffocated the economy. Senator Iván Cepeda announces that the demonstrations will be “a peaceful expression of civil disobedience and popular sovereignty.”
Bolívar’s ‘sword show’ that will not be repeated
On August 7, 2022, after donning the presidential sash, Gustavo Petro issued his first order with a thundering voice: “As president of Colombia, I request the Military House to bring Bolívar’s sword. An order from the popular mandate and this president,” he roared, to the delirium of his followers present at that ceremony in which he took office.
Felipe VI and the rest of the guests had to wait, stunned, half an hour for the solemn arrival of the long-awaited relic in a glass case, guarded by guards. The King’s gesture of not standing up as it passed caused great controversy in the country.
This Friday there will be no sword nor debate about it. Petro returned it to the Quinta de Bolívar House Museum, its traditional home, on July 24, in another show he baptized as “Victory Parade.”
