Bogotá, Colombia – Colombian President-elect Abelardo de la Espriella wants to assume the presidency at a military garrison outside the capital, breaking with 140 years of tradition.
With the inauguration date set for August 7, de la Espriella intends to send a strong message about his security and decentralization agendas by conducting the ceremony far away from Bogotá in the southwest province of Cauca.
The Senate approved a motion on Wednesday temporarily moving Congress to Cauca to inaugurate de la Espriella, with the lower house set to vote on the matter on July 28.
While de la Espriella’s desired location has not been specified, he has said he wants to hold it at a military base in Cauca, a rebel stronghold and one of the regions most-affected by the country’s internal armed conflict.
“I am going to take office in the south of the country at a military garrison to pay solemn tribute to the nation’s heroes and to the members of the armed forces who protect democracy, freedom, and our institutions,” said the president-elect earlier this month.
Since Colombia became a republic in 1886, all 35 presidents have taken office in the capital city, including military dictator Gustavo Rojas Pinilla.
The constitution stipulates that the president must assume office in the presence of Congress, whose seat is the National Capitol in Bogotá.
However, the constitution also says that, “The chambers may, by agreement between them, move their seat to another place.” The Senate approved the relocation by 55 votes to 32.
Yann Basset, politics professor at Universidad del Rosario, told The Bogotá Post that there are “various symbolic aspects” to the decision.
In part, the desire to move the inauguration to a region near the Ecuadorian border can be seen as symbolic of his commitment to devolve power away from Bogotá.
Gustavo Petro pursued a policy of decentralization during his presidency that entailed regions assuming more responsibilities of government as well as receiving a larger share of the national budget. De la Espriella looks set to continue and deepen the policies of decentralization, even proposing designating the Caribbean city of Barranquilla, Colombia’s fourth largest city, as an official alternate capital.
Cauca is also a symbolic location for the administration’s ambitious security agenda. In April this year, a terrorist attack in the province, attributed to FARC dissidents, left twenty-one people dead. De la Espriella was elected on a promise to reverse the deteriorating security situation.
Nevertheless, the logistical complications and expense of transporting the congress to Cauca have attracted criticism from opposition politicians, claiming it could cost upward of US$1.8 million.
The Senate’s motion also makes no mention of de la Espriella’s desire to hold the ceremony in a military facility, which has been criticized for threatening the independence of the military and the republican character of the inauguration.
“The act of giving pre-eminence to the military in an inauguration ceremony, when one was elected by the popular vote and not by the will of the military is symbolically […] very undemocratic,” said Basset.
The attempt to hold the inauguration in a military garrison has been sharply criticized by politicians and jurists across the political spectrum.
Rodrigo Uprimy, a prominent Colombian jurist, argued in the journal Dejusticia that holding the inauguration at a barracks would “symbolically express a desire to militarize executive power, contrary to the best republican traditions”.
Meanwhile Senator Rafael Nieto of the right-wing Democratic Center party said, “We must preserve democratic institutions and their symbolic value […] The message sent by a president being sworn in before the military is absolutely and completely wrong.”
De la Espriella’s bid to hold the ceremony behind closed doors marks a shift away from outgoing president Gustavo Petro, who was the first president in modern history to allow the public to attend his inauguration.
Petro maintains that Senator Iván Cepeda – who narrowly lost the election to de la Espriella – is the legitimate president-elect and promises to frustrate any attempt to conduct the ceremony at a military facility.
Cepeda has also insisted that he will not attend the inauguration regardless of where it is held.
Basset warns that owing to the fact that Petro continues to be the chief of the armed forces until the inauguration, “we could yet see a pantomime.”
Popayán, Cauca. Image credit: M M, 2014.
This article originally appeared in The Bogotá Post and was republished with permission.
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