Abelardo de la Espriella is sworn in as President of Colombia for the 2026-2030 term

Far-right lawyer Abelardo de la Espriella was sworn in this Friday as President of Colombia for the 2026-2030 term, in an inauguration ceremony held at a university auditorium in Cali, capital of the Valle del Cauca department (southwest).

“I swear to God and promise the people to faithfully fulfill the Constitution and the laws of Colombia,” said De la Espriella upon taking the oath before the President of Congress, Honorio Henríquez, who immediately thereafter placed the presidential sash on him.

The inauguration ceremony of far-right lawyer Abelardo de la Espriella as president of Colombia for the 2026-2030 term began this Friday at a university auditorium in Cali, capital of the Valle del Cauca department, in the presence of a majority of Congress, national authorities, and heads of state from a dozen countries.

Following the verification of the legislative quorum, a commission composed of senators and representatives from the Chamber of various parties headed to another location to invite De la Espriella to address the USC Arena at the Santiago de Cali University, where the ceremony is taking place.

The session then went into a prolonged recess awaiting the president-elect and his wife, Ana Lucía Pineda, who, after more than half an hour had passed, had still not arrived at the auditorium.

The guests at Abelardo de la Espriella’s investiture

The absence of congresspeople from the Historic Pact, the party of Colombia’s outgoing president, Gustavo Petro, is notable at the event; they are not attending De la Espriella’s inauguration, whom they consider an “illegitimate” president, and many of them do not recognize his election, maintaining that there was fraud.

Those who are attending are former Colombian presidents César Gaviria (1990-1994), Andrés Pastrana (1998-2002), Álvaro Uribe (2002-2010), and Iván Duque (2018-2022), while Ernesto Samper (1994-1998) and the 2016 Nobel Peace Prize laureate, Juan Manuel Santos (2010-2018), were not invited.

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To the auditorium, decorated with Colombian flowers and large screens reading ‘Welcome to the Miracle Homeland’, also arrived King Felipe VI of Spain and the presidents of Argentina, Javier Milei; Ecuador, Daniel Noboa; Paraguay, Santiago Peña; Panama, José Raúl Mulino; Dominican Republic, Luis Abinader; Chile, José Antonio Kast; and Honduras, Nasry Asfura, as well as the president of FIFA, Gianni Infantino.