POLITICS-COLOMBIA: PASTRANA'S TRIUMPH BOOSTS TIES WITH U.S.

BOGOTA, IPS - The triumph of Andres Pastrana in yesterday's elections will
help ease Colombia's tense relations with the United States, which took a
sharp downward turn during the four-year term of Ernesto Samper, political
analysts say.

The United States took an apparently neutral stance towards the elections,
the second round of which was won yesterday by the conservative Pastrana
over the governing Liberal Party's candidate Horacio Serpa.

But "it is clear that Washington has more confidence in the
president-elect," Luis Valencia, an analyst with the private University de
Los Andes, told IPS today.

In Valencia's view, the United States "knows the Pastrana government will be
politically weaker" than a Serpa administration would have been, but the
Liberal candidate's ties with Samper diminished his credibility.

The 44-year-old Pastrana, who comes from a long line of politicians,
including his father, former president Misael Pastrana (1970-74), was voted
into office as the candidate for the Great Alliance for Change, led by the
traditional Conservative Party.

The last Conservative president was Belisario Betancur, voted into office in
1982 with 2.79 million votes, compared to the more than six million votes
(just over 50 percent) taken by Pastrana yesterday -- the largest number of
votes ever garnered by a presidential candidate in Colombian history.

His rival, Serpa, who had won the first round of voting on May 31, took
around 5.58 million, or 46 percent.

Colombia has a population of 35 million people.

Pastrana represented a broad alliance of political forces, and had the
outspoken support of Nobel Peace Laureate Gabriel Garcia Marquez.

He will take office August 7, and will have to govern with a parliament
dominated by the Liberal Party, which holds 66 seats in the Senate and 97 in
the Chamber of Deputies, against the Conservative Party's 33 and 59.

An element which observers say played heavily in the winning candidate's
favor was last week's publication of a photo showing one of his advisers
with the leaders of FARC, the largest guerrilla group active in Colombia.

Although it did not pronounce its support for any candidate, FARC criticized
Serpa "for not having done anything in favor of peace" when he served as
interior minister under President Samper.

The president-elect announced that he would immediately make contact with
FARC to seek a peace accord to put an end to Colombia's decades-old armed
conflict.

"Our first responsibility is to implement a peace policy," said the
candidate, who promised to answer the call "of 10 million Colombians who
voted last year in the Citizen Mandate for Peace," organized by some 30
nongovernmental organizations.

The former mayor of Bogota said he planned to meet directly with the heads
of the guerrilla and paramilitary groups active in Colombia, and to seek
international cooperation in the peace process.

With unemployment at an all-time high of 14.5 percent of the economically
active population, Pastrana's campaign platform included promises to cut
taxes to foster the generation of employment -- one million jobs over the
next four years. He also announced reforms of the education system, with
free breakfasts and lunches for low-income students.

A candidate of "neoliberal leanings" according to analysts, the
president-elect is in favor of privatizing public enterprises, promised to
boost production, gain the trust of investors, and to keep the annual
inflation rate below 10 percent.

He also announced stiffer sentences for drug traffickers, and said he was in
favor of extradition with retroactive effect, as demanded by the U.S.
government.

Pastrana was defeated in 1994 by President Samper, who he accused shortly
afterwards of accepting campaign contributions from drug cartels.

Although Samper was finally absolved by the Chamber of Deputies, those in
charge of his campaign finances were convicted of having accepted money from
the Cali cartel.

Hernando Gomez, an analyst with the daily "El Tiempo", the most widely read
newspaper in Colombia, said Pastrana's triumph would help improve the
country's international image, and bring a new and positive outlook for
investors and symbolic reprieval from the Samper administration.

Alfredo Rangel, a former national security adviser to Samper, said Pastrana
would have "a smoother relationship with the United States" than what Serpa
could have achieved.

As interior minister, Serpa clashed several times with Washington, which he
accused of meddling in internal Colombian affairs with its questioning of
the legitimacy of the Samper administration.

For two years in a row, Washington "decertified" Colombia as an ally in the
war on drugs, and cancelled Samper's entry visa to the United States.

The magazine "Time" said Washington's anti-drug czar Barry McCaffrey told
several leaders of Colombia's Liberal Party that relations between the two
countries would not improve if Serpa won the elections.

But a week before the second round of elections yesterday, analysts in
Washington and New York told the magazine "Cambio 16" that "the United
States has interests, not friends," and that its Colombia policy would not
be influenced by the outcome of the elections.

Washington wants Colombia to eradicate coca crops, extradite drug
traffickers and expropriate their property. The Clinton administration also
warned that Colombia's human rights record had hit a critical point during
Samper's term.

Serpa did not directly refer during the campaign to relations with the
United States, although he said he would base his international policy on
"the principle of mutual respect."

Pastrana, meanwhile, promised to heal relations with the United States by
"rescuing presidential dignity," and strengthening Colombia's foreign policy.

The Department of International Relations of the private Javeriana
University released a document which said Colombia's new foreign policy must
be based on legitimacy and maneuvering room for the new president, who is
being called on to give an international dimension to Colombia's drug
trafficking and human rights problems as well as to resolve the armed conflict.

Checked-by: Melodi Cornett