CALI, Colombia — Abelardo De La Espriella, who holds dual Colombian and U.S. citizenship, delivered his first speech as the president of Colombia on Friday in Cali.
De La Espriella, 48, a right-wing attorney who had never been elected to public office before, took the oath of office at the Santiago de Cali University.
De La Espriella, who campaigned as “The Tiger,” delivered his speech at the Pichincha Battalion, a base of the Army’s Third Brigade, in southern Cali.
“I do not believe in assemblies convened to alter the rules of the Republic, prolong the exercise of power, or remake institutions at the whim of those who govern,” De La Espriella said in Spanish.
Gustavo Petro, the outgoing president who did not attend the ceremony, had aimed to convene an assembly to change Colombia’s 1991 Constitution.
“One of my first acts of government will be to sign the Shield of the Americas,” De La Espriella said during his speech about President Donald Trump’s America’s Counter-Cartel Coalition, or ACCC.
To start his fight against crime, De La Espriella announced that his administration will soon issue a list of narcoterrorist groups.
“I think that people have the feeling that the previous government, in trying to negotiate with criminal organizations and insurgent groups, they basically allowed them to grow,” said Sandra Borda, an associate professor of political science at the University of the Andes in Bogotá.
De La Espriella also promised fiscal responsibility.
“The new government is going to try to put the house in order in terms of public finances,” Borda said.
De La Espriella’s guests included acting U.S. Attorney General Todd Blanche, Spain’s King Felipe VI, Argentine President Javier Milei, Ecuadorian President Daniel Noboa, Chilean President José Antonio Kast, Dominican President Luis Abinader, and FIFA’s Gianni Infantino.
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