WASHINGTON: Former US president George W Bush will attend the inauguration of President-elect Joe Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris on January 20, his spokesperson has said.
Bush, 74, would be accompanied by with former First Lady Laura Bush.
“President and Mrs Bush look forward to returning to the Capitol for the swearing in of President Biden and Vice President Harris,” his spokesman Freddy Ford said in a statement.
“I believe this will be the eighth inauguration they’ve had the privilege of attending. President Trump’s being the most recent, and witnessing the peaceful transfer of power is a hallmark of our democracy that never gets old,” Ford said.
Bush’s decision to attend Biden’s inauguration assumes significance given that he is from the Republican Party and President Donald Trump has refused to accept the results of the elections.
Several Congressmen of the Republican Party are planning to object to the election results at the US Capitol on Wednesday.
As Chairman of the powerful Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Biden had supported Bush in his key foreign policy initiative of Civilian Nuclear Deal with India.
This was significant given that there was bitter political divided among the Democrats and the Republicans on several key foreign policy and national security issues.
Biden’s low-key inauguration on January 20 will include a Pass in Review on the East Front, a presidential escort to the White House, and a virtual parade across America following his official swearing in at the US Capitol.
After the official swearing-in ceremony on the West front of the US Capitol, the President-elect, First Lady Jill Biden, Vice President-elect Harris, and Second Gentleman Douglas Emhoff will participate in a Pass in Review on the East front with members of the military.
However, former President Jimmy Carter and former first lady Rosalynn Carter will not attend the event. It marks the first time the couple, 96 and 93, will have missed the ceremonies since Carter was sworn in as the 39th president in 1977.
A spokeswoman at The Carter Center in Atlanta said the Carters have sent Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris their “best wishes” and “look forward to a successful administration.”
Biden was a young Delaware senator and Carter ally during the Georgian’s term in the White House.
The Carters have spent the coronavirus pandemic mostly at their home in Plains, Georgia, where both were raised and where they returned after leaving the White House in 1981.
Carter, a Democrat, became the longest-lived American president in March 2019, surpassing former President George H.W. Bush, who died the previous November. Carter survived a melanoma diagnosis that spread to his brain in 2015. He has since had several falls and hip replacement surgery. He no longer teaches Sunday School at Maranatha Baptist Church in Plains, as he had for decades, but still participates in church activities via video amid the COVID-19 pandemic.