CALI, Colombia — When Abelardo de la Espriella raises his right hand on Friday, Aug. 7, he will do something no elected Colombian president has done in more than a century: take the oath somewhere other than Bogotá. The venue shift is only one break with custom. Outgoing President Gustavo Petro is boycotting the event outright, a decades-old medal ceremony has quietly been dropped, and the transition has unfolded against unproven fraud claims and warnings about the country's stability. It all arrives as Colombia positions itself for a warmer relationship with Washington under its incoming right-leaning leader.
