Out of pride, rudeness, or blatant differences with the new leaders, the transition of power in some American countries has become a controversial and uncomfortable moment, an attitude that Donald Trump now embodies in the United States by denying it. to attend the investiture of elected Joe Biden.
However, this is not the first case on the continent. In recent years, America has recorded several examples of elected officials who have been planted by outsiders in the handover ceremony.
In addition to the US, the Dominican Republic and Bolivia have been the protagonists of the most recent disdain for elected rulers.
THE PRESIDENTIAL PLANT OF 2021
On Wednesday, January 20, half the world will stop to watch the change of command ceremony for the presidency of the United States. Joe Biden will take office without the presence of the man who, until yesterday, resisted accepting his electoral defeat: Donald Trump.
Today, with the derogatory phrase, “Here I leave the government,” Trump has announced that he will not go to the ceremony. “To all who have asked me, I will not go to the inauguration on January 20,” he commented in a laconic tweet.
This more than a knock on the door is a relief for Biden, who celebrated that Trump is not attending his inauguration, assuring that it is “one of the few things” they both agree on, despite who is confident that outgoing Vice President Mike Pence will go.
A situation that according to several experts was seen to come after a hectic and tense election day that gave Biden the victory and that became an “outrage” of Trump to point out without evidence that fraud was committed during the election .
Another sign of disagreement on the part of Trump, who fueled the protests and capture of Capitol by his followers last Wednesday, in which 5 people died and more than 52 were injured.
However, this is not the first time this has happened in the United States: Andrew Johnson (1865-1869) refused to attend the inauguration of Ulysses S. Grant (1869-1877) at the Capitol; and John Quincy Adams (1825-1829) did the same with Andrew Jackson (1829-1837), although the reasons were not known.
Another president who was not in office of his successor was Richard Nixon (1974), who had already left the White House after resigning over the “Watergate” scandal, when his vice president, Gerald Ford, left. swear the charge he left free.
Protocol “QUILOMBO”
“May God, the homeland and him (Kirchner) ask me to.” With these words, on December 10, 2011, Cristina Fernández de Kirchner took office for the second time as country president before a full Argentine Parliament.
These same words were fulfilled after the victory of the conservative Mauricio Macri over the Kirchnerist Daniel Scioli, in 2015.
Politics refused to be present at the investiture of his successor to hand over the presidential band and cane, following the “quilombo” that was triggered by a protocol turned into a lawsuit.
The dispute arose when Macri, in a telephone call, asked the president to hand over the attributes of command to the Pink House (government headquarters) and not to Congress, as was the custom of Kirchnerism in the United States. his 12 years in power.
COVID-19 AND A PRESIDENTIAL BAND
Last August, when the covid-19 already kept several countries under quarantine, the Dominican Republic witnessed the inauguration of Luis Abinader as president, after the elections of July 5, which were held under strict health measures .
The inauguration was attended by only eight delegations, including three presidents: the President of Honduras, Juan Orlando Hernández, of Haiti, Jovenel Moise, and the President of Guinea Bissau, Umaro Sissoco packed.
Within minutes and under a simple and quick protocol in the office of the President of the Senate, the outgoing president, Danilo Medina (2012-2020), handed over the presidential band to Abinader.
The outgoing government explained that Medina would not be present at the August 16 swearing in in the National Congress as a preventive measure for the coronavirus.
Insolence IN EVO’S BOLIVIA
After a debacle of situations full of tension in Bolivia by the departure of Evo Morales from power, the pandemic that affected the country and the victory of Luis Arce in the elections for the Movement for Socialism (MAS), the Morales herself, the wine planted by the interim president, Jeanine Áñez.
Áñez assured that he would not go to the investiture acts of the successor in the face of discrepancies and accusations for the deaths of civilians in military and police operations when he came to power in November 2019 and returned to his hometown, Beni, located in the northeast of the country.
“I stay here, to continue contributing from the place that touches me, I have causes, I will defend the good and democracy,” he said, confirming that he would not attend the investiture of Arce, which took place on 8 November.
FROM ALAN TO HUMALA NOW PPK IN PERU
By political maneuvers, ideas and radical positions, Peru has also been protagonist of several misunderstandings between outgoing leaders and their successors.
In 2011, Alan García (2006-2011 and 1985-1990) did not attend the transfer of command to Ollanta Humala (2011-2016). Instead, Garcia handed over the presidential band at the Government Palace to the head of the military house.
The head of state had announced that he would not go to the ceremony in Congress to prevent a repeat of the boos he received on his departure from government in 1990, when he left the country in a severe economic crisis.
“It is not a disdain or goes against the democratic tradition,” but if “a circus or an ambush with scandals” is prepared, then he would be disrespecting the Presidency of the Republic, then warned Garcia
The episode was repeated by Humala himself with Pedro Pablo Kuczynski (2016-2018) and a fujimorista, the Speaker of Parliament, Llum Salgado, was in charge of imposing the presidential band.
For one reason or another, absences in power transfers are hardly justified except by pandemic or major cause. Politicians, according to the old textbooks of urbanity, must be exemplary in front of the citizens. Behaving with rebukes, contempt, or outbursts of tone are attitudes that do not speak very well of the education of these leaders.