MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Traditional right-wing technocrats and Christian voices will share Colombia's new cabinet

The inauguration will take place on Friday, August 7, at the Arena USC of the Santiago de Cali University, outside the capital, for the 2026-2030 term

Colombia's president-elect, Abelardo de la Espriella, has completed all eighteen posts in his cabinet four days before taking office, with a team that will combine technical profiles drawn from the traditional right with figures close to Christian movements and to positions aligned with Trumpism.

The inauguration will take place on Friday, August 7, at the Arena USC of the Santiago de Cali University, outside the capital, for the 2026-2030 term. The government program is called “Patria Milagro.” Vice President-elect José Manuel Restrepo, an economist who served as trade and finance minister under Iván Duque, heads the transition team working with Gustavo Petro's outgoing government.

Several appointments come from the right with institutional track records. The Interior Ministry will go to Rodrigo Lara, a former Cambio Radical senator; Finance to Miguel Gómez; and Justice to criminal lawyer Iván Cancino. Transport will be headed by Elsa Noguera, former mayor of Barranquilla and former governor of Atlántico, who served as housing minister under Juan Manuel Santos and built her career within Cambio Radical. Defense will be led by retired Major General Jorge Eduardo Mora López, who should not be confused with General Jorge Enrique Mora Rangel, a negotiator in the Havana peace talks.

The Health Ministry will fall to Ana María Vesga, a lawyer with fifteen years in the sector who until now headed Acemi, the association representing the eleven private insurers of the contributory health regime, entities the ministry regulates. The president-elect has tasked her with an emergency plan for the system's crisis. Culture will go to Paola Holguín, a Centro Democrático senator between 2014 and 2026.

Other appointments reflect a different profile. The foreign ministry will be headed by diplomat Omar Bula, who according to El País criticizes the United Nations, warns of what he calls an anti-Western globalist agenda and holds that climate change is an ideological construct. Those positions have not been independently verified. Housing will go to pastor and former Bucaramanga mayor Jaime Andrés Beltrán, and Education to former senator and former attorney general Viviane Morales, who has publicly opposed same-sex marriage, adoption by same-sex couples, euthanasia and abortion. Her appointment, to a portfolio outside her field, has raised concern among LGBTI organizations.

De la Espriella, a criminal defense lawyer with no previous experience in public office, won the June 21 election on a campaign built around a break with the political establishment. He has announced measures with strong symbolic weight, including moving national agencies out of Bogotá, designating Barranquilla as an alternate seat of government and turning the current presidential palace into a museum, alongside ultimatums to illegal armed groups, tougher sentencing and tax cuts.