NEW COLOMBIAN PRESIDENT GETS JUMP ON COUNTRY'S PROBLEMS

BOGOTA, Colombia, Aug. 6 - Alvaro Uribe Velez wants to get his government
off to a fast start.

Since May, when Colombian voters elected him president in a landslide, Mr.
Uribe has traveled to Europe, Washington and four Latin American countries,
seeking aid and assuaging concerns about his hard-line approach to
combating Colombia's surging rebel movements. His transition staff
undertook an assessment of the country's 16 ministries, devising policies
they say will reform the bureaucracy and cut waste.

On Wednesday, the day he is inaugurated, he plans to introduce legislation
to reduce the size of Congress by nearly half.

He has also been marshaling support from top business leaders for a tax
increase, to help pay for his plans to double the size of security forces
to battle the guerrillas.

Mr. Uribe knows that he has to show results quickly on the promise that led
voters to elect him on May 26: that his would be a can-do presidency that
would bring some order to this troubled country. That pledge appealed to
Colombians tired of Andres Pastrana, the departing president, whose efforts
to bring peace through negotiations with the rebels ended in collapse.

"Uribe is the embodiment of the anti-Pastrana leader," said Fernando
Cepeda, a former government minister and analyst. "We can be sure that if
things turn out badly with this government, no one can say it will be for
lack of effort."

But for all his hard-working demeanor, Mr. Uribe faces a tough battle in a
country short on patience and money.

His plans to double the army's combat force to 100,000 soldiers and the
National Police to 200,000 will cost $1 billion a year, when the annual
budget is just $27 billion.

Even though some top industrialists have voiced support for special taxes
and so-called war bonds, the details of the financing remain unclear and
troubling to economists worried about the country's economic stability.

The most startling of Mr. Uribe's proposed political reforms - the plan to
reduce Congress to 150 lawmakers from 268 while ending many of their
special privileges - has aroused opposition, even among politicians who won
office by allying themselves with him.

"I find it absurd to revoke or reduce the terms of a Congress that won
legitimately at the voting booth," said Senator Guillermo Chavez, who
supported Mr. Uribe.

Mr. Uribe's own advisers - Fabio Echeverry and Rudolf Hommes, who oversaw
the review of Mr. Pastrana's ministries - offered a sober view of the state
of the economy. In a news conference last week, they said rural
unemployment had reached 50 percent, the economy would grow a dismal 1.5
percent this year and the deficit would reach 6 percent of gross domestic
product.

But the greatest question is whether Mr. Uribe's promise to crack down on
leftist rebels - a pledge that resonated with a conflict-weary populace -
will bear fruit. Colombia's army, though more professional and efficient
than it was in the mid-1990's, faces a powerful and experienced foe in the
Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, the largest rebel group.

The group has flexed its muscles in recent weeks by threatening hundreds of
mayors, many of whom fled their posts for fear they would be killed. On
Monday and today the group stepped up the violence, bombing a provincial
airport in eastern Colombia, a government building and other targets,
injuring several civilians.

In addition to expanding the armed forces, Mr. Uribe has proposed to
organize a million-member force of civilian informers to help the army root
out rebels. Critics fear that the project will create new dangers for
noncombatants.

Such sweeping plans, which differ markedly from the laid-back approach of
Mr. Pastrana, a former television anchorman, have led to rising expectations.

"He received a strong mandate from Colombians in the elections, but it will
not be easy to fulfill the expectations that he created during the
campaign," said Vicente Torrijos, a political analyst.

Mr. Echeverry, a key adviser, cautioned reporters that Mr. Uribe did "not
promise streams of milk and honey."

The president-elect has also tried to ease concerns here and abroad about
his shift to the right.

The day after the presidential election, he proposed United Nations
mediation in peace talks with rebels.

A month later, he met with Secretary General Kofi Annan in New York.

Not long after the election he also named his cabinet ministers, and 6 of
13 were women (three ministries were merged into others), including the
defense minister and the minister of exterior relations.

Bush administration officials, who see Mr. Uribe as a dependable caretaker
of American policy in Colombia, pledged firm support. Last month, Congress
approved a provision in antiterrorism legislation that would allow some
American-supplied equipment, like helicopters, to be used directly against
the rebels, a change from previous guidelines that limited such equipment
to use in antidrug operations.

"The hope is that the government's agenda gets set and that progress is
made," John Walters, the White House drug policy chief, said in an
interview today. He predicted that Mr. Uribe would make "a real and
important start and progress" in his programs.

Many Colombians, worn out by four years of rising violence and kidnappings,
believe that Mr. Uribe has the right prescription for the country's troubles.

"A new hope will be born this Wednesday," said El Espectador, a Bogota
newspaper. "And though it is irrational to think that solutions for all of
the country's problems will be found in the short term, there is a reason
for that hope."