Despite having been invited, Maduro was not on hand to attend the swearing-in ceremony of Mexico’s 58th president, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, who today took the reigns of the country.
Maduro’s presidential airplane–which is registered FAV0001–landed in Mexico City at 11:46 AM local time, nearly half an hour after Lopez Obrador took the podium at the national legislature:
Maduro’s invitation to the ceremony was was a hotly-debated topic in Mexico given Maduro’s naked authoritarianism. Just before today’s ceremony at the national legislature began, a group of Mexican lawmakers put up a banner that read “MADURO IS NOT WELCOME”. You can see the banner going up in the video below:
Below, an image of the banner as it appeared in the legislature during the ceremony:
At the start of his address, Lopez Obrador read a list of the foreign leaders who had traveled to Mexico City to attend the event. When he read Maduro’s name, the legislature erupted in a roar as deputies chanted “dictator!”.
You can see that moment starting at around 0:10 below:
A group of Venezuelans living in Mexico City also organized a protest against Maduro’s visit. In the video below, the exiled mayor of the El Hatillo municipality speaks to a crowd of demonstrators in Mexico City’s Paseo de la Reforma earlier today:
More images of the protest:
Though he arrived late, Maduro did not miss all of the festivities. In the video below, Maduro greets a crowd as he enters a building. At least some of the crowd appear to be chanting his name:
I am thankful for the shows of love from the brotherly people of Mexico. We’ve come to show [AMLO] our support and the brotherhood of the Venezuelan people. Long live a united America! Long live Benito Juarez! Long live Bolivar!
Below, Maduro sitting his Cuban and Bolivian homologues, Miguel Diaz-Carnel and Evo Morales, respectively:
Brothers from the big homeland [sic] at the inauguration ceremony for [AMLO], who today writes a brilliant page in the history of our peoples who fight for self-determination and Latin American unity.
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