Colombia's guerrillas keep voters' turnout below 50 percent level

BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) Fewer than half of Colombia's registered voters
cast ballots in weekend elections but the government portrayed the turnout
as a successful rejection of a guerrilla boycott.

The national election commissioner, Orlando Abello, Monday put the turnout
at about 10 million of 20.4 million registered voters, or 49 percent up
slightly from 47 percent in 1994 regional elections.

President Ernesto Samper proclaimed the vote a triumph for democracy.

He acknowledged, however, that people in some areas heeded the leftist rebel
boycott and chose not to vote for mayors, governors and state and municipal
offices.

Abello said Monday that he could only confirm that voting wasn't held in 20
of Colombia's 1,072 municipalities. But Colombian news media, which sent
reporters far into rebel dominated zones, said more than 150 towns did not
vote.

In scores of municipalities, the rebel intimidation campaign produced a
meager turnout. In San Francisco, where a local priest was killed Saturday
in a bungled attempt to assassinate Antioquia state Gov. Alvaro Uribe, 29
people out of 6,500 eligible voters cast ballots.

"People stayed home and didn't vote, fearing repression and the possibility
of armed clashes with guerrillas," said a local election official, Oscar de
Jesus.

Guerrillas kidnapped two observers from the Organization of American States
at a nearby roadblock on Thursday, vowing not to release them until after
the election. On Monday, there was still no word when the Chilean and
Guatemalan might be released.

At least 53 candidates were slain in the months preceding Sunday's vote,
most by guerrillas but some by the rebels' paramilitary foes. At least 2,000
candidates withdrew under death threats. More than 300 withdrew after being
kidnapped.

Samper's governing Liberal Party maintained a majority of state and local
posts. It won 19 of 32 governorships, compared to four for the
Conservatives, and captured 412 city halls against 301 for the
Conservatives, official results showed.

The Liberal Party's Enrique Penalosa, a 42yearold economist, was elected
mayor of Bogota, while Conservative Juan Gomez Martinez won that office in
Medellin, the country's No. 2 city. Ideological differences between the two
main parties are marginal coalition candidates won six governorships and
54 city halls.

Emboldened by the weakness of Samper's corruptionplagued government, the
rebels now pose the gravest challenge to Colombian democracy in their more
than 30year insurgency.

They control wide swaths of countryside and earn tens of millions annually
from kidnapping, extortion and levying "war taxes" on cocaine and heroin
production.

Samper's perceived moral bankruptcy has left a void that civic groups tried
to fill Sunday with an initiative that asked voters to place a "Citizens'
Mandate for Peace, Life and Liberty" flier in a special ballot box.

Organizers said more than 90 percent complied.

The chief organizer of the symbolic vote, former El Tiempo news editor
Francisco Santos, said he had no illusions about its meaning.

"Peace is something that you build from day to day," he said.

Colombia's two main rebel groups, calling Samper illegitimate, have refused
even to consider negotiating peace until he leaves office next year.