Colombian voters brave violence to elect Congress

By Hugh Bronstein

BOGOTA, Colombia (Reuters) – Colombians went to the polls
on Sunday, despite fear of rebel violence, to elect a new
Congress that will determine the government’s success in
implementing a U.S. free trade deal and other reforms.

President Alvaro Uribe, popular for reducing crime as part
of his crackdown on drug-running leftist guerrillas, is
expected to win re-election in May and carry on his tough,
Washington-backed, military and pro-market economic policies.

He urged his countrymen to vote despite a slew of recent
rebel attacks aimed at scaring people away from the polls,
which closed at 4 p.m. (2100 GMT). Results were expected late
Sunday night.

Juan Carlos Echeverry, head of the economics department at
Bogota’s University of the Andes, said Uribe was set to win a
working majority in the Senate while lower house results are
more uncertain. Uribe has strong support in both chambers but
has struggled to form reliable majorities.

“This election will determine if the government can succeed
in differentiating Colombia from the leftist trends in the
region, by siding with Chile and Mexico instead of siding with
Venezuela and Argentina,” Echeverry told Reuters.

“Tax reform and free trade are critical in the sense of
Colombia supporting pro-market forces in Latin America,” he
said.

Colombia remains a key U.S. ally in a region where
left-wing policies and anti-American sentiment have won favor
in recent elections.

About 26.5 million Colombians are registered to elect the
Andean country’s 268-member Congress, which includes 102
senators and 166 members of the lower house.

Uribe wants Congress to help him shift the tax burden from
companies to consumers in a bid to boost investment.

CAR BOMB EXPLODES

The free trade pact, signed last month, is seen by
economists as key to Colombia’s future competitiveness, and
Wall Street is clamoring for changes in tax law needed to
attract foreign investment to the violence-scarred country.

Dozens of mostly civilians have been killed in recent weeks
by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, which
traditionally steps up attacks at election time. Thousands die
and tens of thousands are forced from their homes every year in
Colombia’s decades-old guerrilla war.

A car bomb exploded on Sunday in the western jungle
province of Choco, but no-one was wounded, the army said. No
incidents were reported at the country’s voting stations,
police said.

“Things are calm. Most of us are voting today just as we
always have,” one Bogota voter told Reuters after casting her
ballot.

Uribe has negotiated a peace deal with illegal right-wing
paramilitaries, under which about 28,000 fighters have turned
in their guns in exchange for reduced jail terms for crimes
such as massacre and torture.

Politicians and analysts say the paramilitaries, organized
as private militias in the 1980s to fight the rebels, are using
Sunday’s election to try to increase their power in Congress to
avoid being extradited to the United States on
cocaine-smuggling charges.

Unlike the paramilitaries, the FARC has refused Uribe’s
terms for negotiating a peace deal.

The center-left Liberal Party and leftist Democratic Pole
party are using Sunday’s vote to choose their presidential
candidates. Uribe enjoys a wide lead over of any likely
challengers, opinion polls say.

(Additional reporting by Luis Jaime Acosta)