Colombian Elections Bolster President

Parties loyal to the Colombian president, Alvaro Uribe, appeared assured of victory in congressional elections deemed by the government the least violent in two decades.

With more than 80% of the votes from yesterday’s election counted, supporters of Mr Uribe’s tough security policies designed to combat the country’s leftwing guerrillas looked poised to take 70 of the 102 seats in the senate.

Mr Uribe is campaigning for re-election on May 28, having succeeded in amending the constitution so he could seek a second consecutive term. If he win a second term, he would be the first president to do so in more than a century.

In an attempt to embarrass the president, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (Farc) have tried to disrupt the campaign and are blamed for the deaths of more than two dozen people in attacks in rural areas in recent weeks.

But with 200,000 soldiers deployed around the country yesterday - double the number during the last elections four years ago - the voting was the safest in two decades, the interior minister said.

The only incidents of violence reported were the burning of three buses in the capital and a car bombing in the north-west province of Chocó. No one was injured in the attacks.

Turnout was nevertheless low - less than half the 26.5 million registered voters cast ballots.

Praising the relative calm, Mr. Uribe called on Farc, the hemisphere’s largest guerrilla group, to abandon its war against the state, which it has been fighting for more than 40 years.

"I call on the Farc to recognize Colombia’s tireless commitment to democracy and take serious steps to achieve peace," the president said in a brief radio address.

Sunday’s triumph by pro-Uribe parties is an indication that Mr. Uribe is on track to get win his second term.

"The biggest victor was Mr. Uribe," said Alejo Vargas, a political scientist at Bogotá’s National University. "To everyone’s surprise, he’ll have about a 70% majority in the senate. Most polls predicted he’d barely reach 50%."

Strong backing in congress should help Mr. Uribe’s efforts to push through ratification of a controversial free trade agreement with the United States and maintain momentum for his military crusade against Farc.

With ballots still being counted in 32 provinces, where 166 seats in Colombia’s lower house were up for grabs, it was not immediately clear how much influence recently demobilized paramilitary groups would wield.

Since 2004, leaders of the right-wing groups and 28,000 of their fighters have demobilized in exchange for a government amnesty and reduced sentences for crimes to which they confess.

The US the UN say paramilitary leaders are trying to convert battlefield gains into political capital by bribing politicians and using threats of violence to intimidate voters.

"The paramilitaries played a decisive role in this election, particularly in the northern part of the country," German Espejo, an analyst with the Bogotá thinktank Security and Democracy told Reuters.

Paramilitary leaders have been trying to win support for legislation that would prohibit their extradition to the United States, where many are wanted on charges of drug trafficking.

Extradition orders are currently suspended as part of Mr. Uribe’s peace deal.