Abelardo de la Espriella will be sworn in as Colombia’s president on Friday, August 7, in an unprecedented inauguration ceremony held outside the capital Bogotá, with the formal transfer of power taking place at the Arena of the Universidad Santiago de Cali (USC) before the new president delivers his first address to the nation from a military canton.
The ceremony marks a departure from Colombia’s recent presidential tradition. For the first time in recent history, the main investiture will be held in Cali, with the proceedings divided between two locations.
The formal ceremony at the Universidad Santiago de Cali is scheduled to begin at 3 p.m. There, Congress will install the solemn session at which De la Espriella will take the constitutional oath and formally assume the presidency.
According to the protocol published by Congress, the president of the Senate, Honorio Henríquez, will place the presidential sash on De la Espriella. The ceremony will also include the swearing-in of Vice President José Manuel Restrepo and an official intervention by the incoming government.
However, De la Espriella’s first presidential address will not take place at the university arena.
Following the formal investiture, the new president and members of his cabinet will travel to Cantón Militar Pichincha, where military honors accompanying the transfer of command will be held. It is there that De la Espriella is expected to address Colombians for the first time as head of state.
The decision to move the inaugural speech to a military installation adds an unusual dimension to the ceremony and underscores the importance the incoming administration has placed on the armed forces at the outset of its term.
The inauguration will also have a strong international presence. King Felipe VI of Spain is expected to attend, alongside the presidents of Argentina, Javier Milei; Ecuador, Daniel Noboa; Chile, José Antonio Kast; Bolivia, Rodrigo Paz; and Paraguay, Santiago Peña.
A high-level delegation from the United States, representing President Donald Trump’s administration, will also attend.
The presence of heads of state and senior American officials makes the Cali ceremony an important diplomatic event as Colombia begins a new political chapter. De la Espriella arrives at the Casa de Nariño after defeating left-wing senator Iván Cepeda in the presidential runoff on June 21.
His assumption of office, however, comes amid an unusually tense transition.
The incoming administration ordered an immediate suspension of the formal handover process after outgoing President Gustavo Petro publicly questioned the legitimacy of De la Espriella’s victory, claiming that the president-elect had not actually won the election and alleging electoral fraud without presenting evidence.
Restrepo announced that the technical committees responsible for reviewing information from government ministries had consequently been frozen.
“No one has the right to disregard that popular mandate or question the legitimacy of the president-elect,” Restrepo said in defending the decision to suspend the transition meetings.
Petro subsequently intensified his criticism, maintaining that the real winner of the election was Cepeda, the governing coalition’s candidate.
De la Espriella responded by accusing the outgoing administration of being a “corrupt government” and said he would not legitimize what he described as an attempt to undermine the constitutional order.
Against that backdrop, Thursday’s investiture will serve not only as the formal transfer of presidential power but as the opening act of a sharply contested new administration.
From the university arena to the military canton, De la Espriella’s first day in office is set to combine constitutional ceremony, military symbolism and international diplomacy in a presidential inauguration unlike any Colombia has seen in recent decades.
