Hardliner winning in Colombia

Three factors explain the astonishing rise of an order-and-authority candidate who until January seemed stuck in third place in polls, with less than a quarter of voter support.

First came Pastrana's decision in February to throw in the towel on three years of peace talks with the country's largest guerrilla group, the Colombian Armed Revolutionary Forces, or FARC. For most Colombians, the talks produced only more and stronger outlaw organizations, more violence, more displaced peasants in the cities, and less hope for peace.

Also playing in Uribe's favor is a crescendo of violence by guerrillas and paramilitary groups that has shocked even inured Colombians. The worst happened earlier this month in the tiny riverside settlement of Bellavista in the conflict-ridden Chocó province. During a ferocious battle with paramilitaries, the FARC lobbed a bomb into the village church, killing 119 villagers as they sought refuge in the settlement's only concrete structure.

And then there is a delayed reaction to Sept. 11. Most now refer to the leftist guerrillas and right-wing paramilitaries as "terrorists," insisting that Colombia is confronting not an ideological insurgency but terrorism.

"The reason all you hear now is 'terrorists' and 'terrorism' is what happened in the US," says Guillermo Escobar, a marble layer and Uribe supporter sharing a puff of Bazooka-pink cotton candy with his three small daughters in a Bogotá park. "Colombians have finally realized that the same thing is happening here," he adds, "only on a daily basis and with no authority able to put a stop to it."

Even the conditions of the presidential campaign have worked in Uribe's favor. In February, candidate Ingrid Betancourt was taken hostage by the FARC – where she remains today along with hundreds of other hostages – proving Uribe's point that the Colombian state has failed in the very basic duty of protecting its own citizens.

Then in April, Uribe – already the target of numerous death threats – had a miraculous near-miss with a car bomb that destroyed his armored vehicle and killed four people. Since then, the conservative candidate and dissident from Colombia's traditional Liberal Party has run a virtual campaign – through the media, Internet chats, and teleconferences – with only rare public appearances.

The studious, bespectacled Uribe's cyber-campaign has drawn derisive quips from chief challenger Horacio Serpa, a former vice president and populist Liberal who calls Uribe the "astronaut candidate." Known by his owlish eyes and bushy moustache, Mr. Serpa is also trying to convince voters that an Uribe victory would mean more bloodshed.

At his sparsely attended campaign closing in a Bogotá park this week, Serpa said he stood "not for lead but for peace," and boomed, "I don't want our children to die for Colombia, but to live for Colombia!" Still, final polls showed Serpa as much as 27 points behind Uribe, who is a point or two short of the 50 percent plus one vote needed to avoid a runoff – but with 6 percent undecided. Other candidates were in single digits.

Where Uribe earns high marks, even among Colombians who don't plan to vote for him, is on his focus on building institutions to arm the country with a modern, efficient state capable of providing basic services from security to education.

"Uribe knows that sooner or later we have to return to the negotiating table [with the guerrillas]," says Fernando Cubides, a sociologist at Colombia's National University. "But he wants to do that from a position of strength, and not just of the military kind."

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