The Historical Pact has confirmed that it will not be present at the inauguration of the elected president, Abelardo de la Espriella, scheduled for August 7 in Cali. The leftist coalition will thus follow the position of senator and former presidential candidate Iván Cepeda, who will be joined in a gathering in Barranquilla.
"We are not going to the inauguration of Abelardo de la Espriella," reiterated the spokesperson for the Historical Pact in the House of Representatives, Alfredo Mondragón, who detailed that, instead of attending the official ceremony, that day they will mobilize in the streets "resisting this government of a U.S. citizen."
Mondragón has insisted that this resistance will be "peaceful" and is part of the "civil disobedience" that Cepeda has proposed as an opposition strategy for the upcoming legislature, in rejection of both the elected president's status as a U.S. citizen and his hypothetical connection with official agencies of that country.
Before the media, Mondragón indicated that they will coordinate with organizations and social movements to prepare a large mobilization that they hope will be "very colorful" and "very artistic." At the same time, he emphasized that precautions will be taken to avoid "infiltrators from the far right" causing incidents that could serve as an excuse for action by security forces.
"We are definitely not going to hide or silence ourselves. What is certain is that the people will not fall for provocations; it will be a determined peaceful resistance," emphasized the spokesperson for the Historical Pact, thus defending a firm but non-violent opposition.
In similar terms, the second vice president of the Senate, Alejandro Ocampo, has also spoken out, additionally criticizing De la Espriella's decision to swear in the position in Cali and not in Congress, which he has defined as the institution "that represents the sovereignty of the people."
Ocampo's criticisms of this "media whim" are based on the possibility, initially considered by the elected president's team, of holding the inauguration in a military barracks, an option that has ultimately been discarded.
The officialist congresswoman Carol Borda has defended that "what matters is going to the territory, if Congress finally says 'no' to doing it in a military garrison, that's fine, let's go to the territory anyway to carry out that presidential possession (...) there is a mood of not doing it in a military garrison, let's do it in a civil space".