President Alvaro Uribe has been re-elected.
From the LA Times:
Uribe's Second Term Is a First
The Colombian president makes history with his reelection. He takes 62% of the vote.
President Alvaro Uribe swept to a reelection victory Sunday as voters gave him a resounding vote of confidence for having reduced violence and reignited the economy, and for restored confidence in a nation that four years ago seemed on the verge of disintegration.
With 96% of the votes counted, Uribe had 62%, a massive lead over the closest of his three main rivals, the Alternative Democratic Pole's Carlos Gaviria, with 22%. Gaviria conceded the race, in effect making Uribe the nation's first president to be democratically elected to a second term.
Uribe's followers in Congress had the constitution changed last year to allow him to become the first modern Colombian president to run for reelection.
"We have to construct a truly secure nation. A secure country is one that guarantees liberties," Uribe told a cheering crowd at a victory speech in a downtown hotel. "Terrorism has wanted to destroy them. Democratic security has tried to recover the liberties that terrorism has wanted to destroy."
Uribe ran on a promise to continue the fight against guerrilla armies, the largest of which, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, has opposed the government in a four-decade-old civil war. The improved security under Uribe's term has been financed partly by Plan Colombia, the U.S. foreign aid package that has funneled more than $600 million annually to Colombia since 2000.
A little bit more:
Voters from varied demographic backgrounds interviewed as they left polling places here Sunday morning said they were enthusiastic Uribistas. "Onward, Mr. President," retired public official Julio Picero, 77, said as he left polls in the impoverished July 20 neighborhood.
"People sense that the country has gone forward and know enough not to be fooled by bright colors and promises," Pi�ero said. "It has cost a lot of work and higher taxes, but it's for our own good. The president should be allowed to finish his plan."
Uribe's victory came despite his notice to Colombians in March that he would raise taxes on the wealthiest to back purchases of equipment for the army.
In remarks to reporters Saturday, Uribe, a bookish and plain-spoken Oxford-educated lawyer who once took law classes from Gaviria, denied suggestions that he might seek a third term. Several voters said Sunday that they would support him again.
"He's been called to govern," said Mercedes Mora, a 63-year-old housewife. "He can end the war if we support him."
Cool -- someone who has the stones to stand up to the Marxists and Maoists that are trying to take over.
Raising the taxes on the rich is not a bad move either...
