Colombia
Cali, Colombia, Aug 7 (EFE).-
Far-right lawyer Abelardo de la Espriella was sworn in on Friday as president of Colombia for the 2026–2030 term, in an inauguration ceremony held at a university auditorium in Cali, the capital of the Valle del Cauca department (southwest).
De la Espriella, 48, took the oath of office before Congress Speaker Honorio Henríquez, swearing to uphold the Constitution and the law.
Simultaneously, Army soldiers fired a 21-gun salute in the colors of the Colombian flag from the José María Córdova Military Cadet School in Bogotá, and the newly inaugurated president received a warm welcome from his family and applause from those present at the USC Arena at the University of Santiago de Cali.
Immediately afterward, De la Espriella administered the oath of office to his vice president, José Manuel Restrepo.
The new president’s guest of honor, Luis Felipe Yagüéy a 74-year-old farmer and street vendor from Florencia, Caquetá (south), was also present.
Yagüe became popular after he was seen in a viral video where a university professor told him he would stop buying panela (unrefined cane sugar) from him because he had voted for De la Espriella. Yagüe listened and left, which made him very popular on social media.
The story was also noticed by the president-elect, who invited him to the inauguration as a show of support for small business owners.
De la Espriella arrived at the auditorium accompanied by his wife, Ana Lucía Pineda, and their four children, all minors, and was greeted with applause by more than a thousand national and international guests, who had waited over an hour for his arrival.
Among the guests were King Felipe VI of Spain and the presidents of Argentina, Javier Milei; Ecuador, Daniel Noboa; Paraguay, Santiago Peña; Panama, José Raúl Mulino; the Dominican Republic, Luis Abinader; Chile, José Antonio Kast; and Honduras, Nasry Asfura, as well as FIFA President Gianni Infantino.
Also present were 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.
Following the ceremony, De la Espriella will travel to the Pichincha Military Canton, 2.5 kilometers from the auditorium, where he will deliver his first speech as president before the country’s military leaders. EFE
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