Colombia's independent candidate Alvaro Uribe swept to victory in the presidential election on Sunday, winning 53.2 percent of the 90.3 percent of votes counted.
Second-place Horacio Serpa of the opposition Liberal Party had 31.5 percent of the vote, according to results from the National Registry Office.
Uribe, Colombia's first independent presidential candidate, focused his campaign on the need to get tough with the armed groups blamed for much of the violence that claims more than 23,000 lives a year and has forced an estimated 2 million Colombians to flee their homes.
Born in the second largest Colombian city of Medellin in 1952, Uribe is a tough law and order advocate and arch-foe of leftist guerrillas, who killed his father in 1983 and are targeting on himnow.
Electoral observers said that in some areas, paramilitary fighters campaigned in favor of Uribe, an arch enemy of the 17,000-strong Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and the smaller National Liberation Army (ELN).
Uribe said he would seek additional military aid from the United States, which has branded the FARC, the ELN and other insurgents as terrorists.
He majored in law at the University of Antioquia before going to study business management at Harvard University in the United States. In 1998-1999 he was an associate professor at Oxford University in England.
He served as secretary general of the Colombian Labor Ministry in 1977-1978, mayor of Medellin in 1982 and a town councilor in 1984-1986. Uribe was governor of Antioquia State for the 1995-1997period and a senator for the 1986-1990 and 1990-1994 terms.
The former governor wants to double the size of the armed forces and form a million-strong civilian militia.
Ivan Duque, the official in charge of the National Electoral Register, said that at least 800 voting centers in the rural areashad to be moved to the seat of 180 municipalities around the country. In the rural voting centers, some 320,000 voters should have cast their ballots.
Duque said the most affected states are Narino in the south, Casanare in the east, Risalda, Choco in the west and Cauca in the southeast.
Meanwhile, officials indicated the public order problems occurred in small municipalities of the states of Arauca and Guaviare, areas with the greatest influence of the insurgent organization.
But reports say that the voting was conducted peacefully in most parts of the country, with voters turning out in large numbers to cast ballots.
A total of 24 million Colombians were registered to vote in thepresidential elections on Sunday, for which electoral authorities set up 60,294 voting centers at the 1,098 municipalities across the country.
Some 250,000 troops, police officers and secret service agents were deployed to ensure security in the voting process.
(Xinhua News Agency May 27, 2002)
