Outgoing Marxist President of Colombia Gustavo Petro on Sunday prohibited any Colombian military and police establishment from being used in the upcoming inauguration of conservative President-elect Abelardo de la Espriella.
When Petro’s four-year term ends on August 7, 2026, President-elect de la Espriella will be sworn in as Colombia’s president for the next four years.
The transition between Petro’s outgoing far-left administration and de la Espriella’s incoming conservative government has been marred by Petro’s repeated refusal to recognize de la Espriella’s victory in the June 21 presidential runoff election, in which the now-president-elect defeated Petro’s chosen successor, far-left Senator Iván Cepeda.
On Sunday, Petro published a social media rant in which he, responding to a report on de la Espriella’s plans to hold his inauguration at a military facility, prohibited the use of any military facilities for such ends until a new president is officially sworn in. Petro enacted this prohibition as the current commander-in-chief of the Colombian Armed Forces.
Petro’s message read in part:
That Abelardo doesn’t shake my hand is more or less a compliment, but I obey the laws of the 1991 constitution.
The military and police barracks are under my orders until the moment the new president takes the oath, and therefore until that moment I am the supreme commander of the military forces; no officer salutes a civilian unless that civilian is their supreme commander.
Therefore, in exercise of my constitutional and legal powers, I order that no military facility be used for the inauguration of a president of the Republic of Colombia.
The transfer of command to the new president is under the laws of the Republic and the constitution, and those norms establish that the president is sworn in before Congress in full session.
Speaking with the Colombian magazine Semana in early July, Vice President-elect José Manuel Restrepo confirmed de la Espriella’s plans to hold his inauguration at a military facility. Restrepo asserted that, by doing so, it would demonstrate the importance of the incoming conservative government placed on actors who, unfortunately, have been mistreated by the incumbent administration over the past four years.
“To me, it sends a resounding and powerful message,” Restrepo told Semana at the time, and added that the inauguration ceremony would be “simple, austere.”
Last week, President Petro officially suspended the presidential handover process with de la Espriella because, according to him, de la Espriella “did not win” the election, claiming that “fraud” was allegedly committed and Iván Cepeda is therefore the “president of Colombia.” Unlike Petro, Cepeda recognized de la Espriella’s victory days after the election. Vice President-elect Restrepo said at the time that while the transition process was suspended, his team would continue the administrative handover audits.
Petro, who is yet to present any evidence of his “fraud” accusations at press time, has claimed that “algorithmic fraud” with “foreign funding” was committed in the election. He has also accused the state of Israel of being part of the purported “fraud” electoral conspiracy. Last week, the far-left Historic Pact coalition led by Petro announced that it is planning to file a lawsuit demanding the annulment of the 2026 presidential election and stop de la Espriella’s inauguration. The Council of State, Colombia’s highest administrative tribunal, has not publicly commented on the lawsuit at press time.
On Sunday, Petro published a new, seemingly incoherent social media rant alongside a photo of himself “somewhere in Bogotá.” Petro, who claimed to be “very calm,” said he was examining the “documents and evidence of what artificial intelligence with programming based on mathematics can do, the Israelis in the midst of the world’s most drug-addicted society have managed to maintain dominance in mathematics and physics.”
“And they move within Einstein’s political contradiction, science vs p9lítica [sic], which today reappears in the Israeli private intelligence companies that in U.S. territory did in the USA to defraud not only the people’s vote, but the principle of a nation that is its national sovereignty: they attacked Colombia’s national sovereignty,” the rant read in part.
Petro, throughout the diatribe, once again claimed that de la Espriella “did not win the real elections,” because, according to Petro, “the half million robots and paid people that foreign companies and some Antioquian financing from mafiosos and public entities hired were not enough for him.”
The outgoing president is seen in the photo holding a series of documents and wearing several bracelets — including one that appears to resemble the red, white, and black “flag of the War to the Death,” a flag briefly hoisted by Venezuela over 200 years ago during its war of independence against Spanish colonial rule.
Over the past years, Petro co-opted the Venezuelan war flag for his own political use throughout his presidency alongside the sword that belonged to Venezuelan founding father Simón Bolívar, a relic that remains under the custody of the Colombian state. Petro has also referenced the flag during his official speeches.
The United States-led Shield of the Americas regional security coalition expressed its concerns about Petro and the Historic Pact’s repeated refusal to acknowledge Abelardo de la Espriella’s electoral victory. On Friday, its members released a joint statement rejecting any statement of action that seeks to delegitimize the results of the June presidential election in Colombia and to obstruct the democratic transition process in the South American nation.
“The transition between governments does not constitute a political concession, but rather a constitutional and institutional duty designed to guarantee the continuity of the State, democratic stability, and the effective fulfillment of the popular will,” the statement read in part.
The Argentine outlet Infobae noted on Sunday that despite Petro’s refusal to acknowledge de la Espriella’s victory, he is bound by Colombian law to award President-elect de la Espriella with the “Order of Boyacá” award — a compulsory and traditional ceremonial process between outgoing and incoming Colombian heads of state. Petro received the same medal from his predecessor, conservative former President Ivan Duque, days before his inauguration on August 7, 2022.
Christian K. Caruzo is a Venezuelan writer and documents life under socialism. You can follow him on Twitter here.
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