Bogota.- The Senate of Colombia approved this Wednesday that the inauguration of the president-elect, Abelardo de la Espriella, will take place on August 7 in the department of Cauca (southwest), although it left the definition of the exact location of the ceremony pending after the session was adjourned due to a lack of quorum.
With 55 votes in favor and 32 against, the plenary session approved moving the inauguration ceremony outside of Bogotá, but did not define whether the ceremony will take place at a military garrison as De la Espriella has repeatedly stated, so the vote was postponed until next Tuesday.
The decision must also be discussed by the House of Representatives in a session next week.
The proposal to hold the inauguration in Cauca seeks to move the presidential ceremony for the first time to one of the departments most affected by the armed conflict and with the greatest presence of illegal groups, where in recent years attacks against public forces and the civilian population have intensified through the use of drones loaded with explosives.
We recommend reading:Nicolás Maduro’s son calls the judicial process against his father in the U.S. “unfair”.
The standoff with Petro regarding the inauguration
The Colombian Constitution establishes that the presidential inauguration must take place before Congress and has traditionally been held in the Elliptical Hall of the Capitol, although the last inaugurations have taken place in the Plaza de Bolívar, in the center of Bogotá, and there is no precedent for a different venue.
Furthermore, the outgoing president, Gustavo Petro, said on X on July 12 that he is the “supreme commander of the military forces” until August 7, and therefore “the military and police barracks” will be under his orders until his successor takes office.
In that sense, Petro ordered that “no military establishment shall be used for the inauguration of a president of the Republic of Colombia.”
