Enrique Méndez and Alma E. Muñoz
La Jornada Newspaper
Tuesday, October 1, 2024, p. 5
Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo assumes the Presidency of the Republic today in a session of the General Congress attended by 16 leaders and representatives from 105 countries, and which will take place with a reinforced security deployment.
Yesterday, the President’s team released details of her agenda, as well as the ceremony of handing over the baton in the Zócalo by indigenous communities, and even the dress she chose: an ivory-colored garment hand-embroidered by Oaxacan artisans.
The session is called for 9 a.m., which will begin with positions from each of the six parliamentary groups for up to 10 minutes: MC, PRI, PT, PVEM, PAN and Morena. The majority bench expects behavior republican
of the opposition.
The day before, the security closure around the Congress of the Union was extended to Taller Avenue, double fences were placed in the nearby streets, guarded by soldiers dressed in civilian clothes. And the exterior security is in charge of police from the group on horseback, as well as the National Guard.
The agenda of the session specifies that, after the legislators’ speeches, the board of directors will open a recess, to wait for the arrival of the outgoing president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, and Sheinbaum Pardo to the premises, each accompanied by committees of courtesy.
The protocol for the transfer of power provides that the president of the board of directors, Ifigenia Martínez – who has not attended the six previous ordinary sessions – will direct a few words to ask Sheinbaum to protest before the plenary session
.
Once the protest has been made to preserve and enforce the Constitution and the laws that emanate from it, López Obrador will remove the presidential sash, hand it over to Martínez, who in turn will deliver it to Sheinbaum, who will place it on herself. with the help of a cadet from the Military College.
Obsolete protocols
The Law on the National Shield, Flag and Anthem still establishes that the band will be placed from the right shoulder to the left side, under the jacket and joined at waist level, except in the ceremony of transmission of the Federal Executive Power, in which it will successively be worn, completely uncovered, by the outgoing president and the incoming president.
.
Sheinbaum will wear it on the ivory dress that, her team explained, “was hand-embroidered with a needle and crocheted… made by Claudia Vásquez Aquino, an artisan from Santa María Xadiani, Oaxaca.”
The President’s office highlighted the relevance of Congresswoman Ifigenia Martínez giving her the band, for her historical participation in the democratization of the country and that opened a gap for many women
.
Already invested, Sheinbaum will address a message of almost an hour and a half to Congress, and the ceremony will conclude at 12:30. From the Legislative Palace of San Lázaro, he will go to the National Palace, where he plans an individual greeting in the presidential office with the 16 leaders who attend the transmission of the Executive Power, and later he will offer a lunch in the old Treasury Hall.
In parallel, between 1 and 5 in the afternoon an artistic festival will be held in the Zócalo, with musical bands and dancers from indigenous peoples and communities, as well as a female mariachi.
Later, in the Zócalo, the ceremony will be held with 70 indigenous peoples and the Afro-Mexican people, in which they will receive the baton of command and give a one-hour speech to explain their government project.
