Colombia president: Juan Manuel Santos wins election - Los Angeles times

latimes.com, by Chris Kraul, reporting from Bogotá, 21/06/2010, extracto/excerpt.-

Juan Manuel Santos, a former defense minister and scion of a publishing family, swept to victory Sunday in Colombia's presidential election with a pledge to continue his predecessor's get-tough policies against crime and insurgency.

Santos, 58, easily bested his challenger, former Bogota Mayor Antanas Mockus. With 99% of votes counted, Santos had garnered 69% of the votes in the runoff election to his challenger's 27%. He will be inaugurated on Aug. 7.

Santos, who also outpolled Mockus in last month's first-round election, had been heavily favored to win after he had gained the backing of several major political factions, including third-place finisher German Vargas Lleras. To top it off, the Colombian military recently rescued four armed forces hostages long held by leftist guerrillas, an event seen as boosting Santos' bid.

Meanwhile, Mockus, also 58, fared poorly in the final presidential debate and failed to forge an alliance with the Democratic Pole, Colombia's largest opposition party.

'Security is still an issue here and Santos was able to sell himself as the clearest representative of [current President Alvaro] Uribe and his legacy,' said Marcela Prieto, director of the Political Science Institute of Colombia. 'Mockus was not able to elevate his campaign appeal as he had to do. He made mistake after mistake.'

Santos is expected to continue Uribe's good relations with the United States, which regards Colombia's current leader as its chief Latin American ally and which over the last decade has delivered more than $6 billion in military and development aid to help the country fight drugs and terrorism.

In a victory speech at an indoor sports arena here, Santos said his win was an affirmation of Uribe's 'democratic security' policies, extended an invitation to Mockus to work together and expressed thanks for his 9 million votes. 'Despite torrential rains throughout the country, and [World Cup] soccer matches, we received a quantity of votes never seen in the history of the nation,' Santos told supporters.

The victory culminates lifelong presidential ambitions for Santos, who previously had served in ministerial positions under three presidents but never stood for election. After Uribe in February finally was barred from running for a third term by a court decision, Santos quickly emerged as the leader of the Uribista coalition of parties. His great uncle Eduardo also served as president and founded the newspaper El Tiempo, the country's most important.

Colombia's usually low voter turnout, exacerbated by poor Sunday morning weather in the capital, Bogota, and two key televised World Cup soccer matches, didn't help Mockus to pull off a surprise.