Colombian voters elect Congress

BOGOTA, Colombia - Colombians went to the polls on Sunday despite fear of rebel violence to elect a new Congress that will rule on legislation pushed by President Alvaro Uribe such as a US free trade deal and other measures.

Popular for reducing crime as part of his crackdown on drug-running leftist guerrillas, Uribe is expected to win re-election in May and carry on his tough, Washington-backed, military policies.

He urged his countrymen to vote despite a slew of recent rebel attacks aimed at scarring people away from the polls, saying there was still much to do on the security and economic front.

The free trade deal, inked between Colombia and the United States last month, is seen my economists as key to Colombia's future competitiveness, and Wall Street is clamouring for fiscal reforms needed to ensure the country's long-term solvency.

Polls close at 4pm (10am Mon NZT) and preliminary results are expected later in the evening. About 26.5 million Colombians are registered to help elect the Andean country's 268-member Congress, which includes 102 senators and 166 members of the lower house.

Dozens of mostly civilians have been killed in recent weeks by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, which traditionally steps up attacks at election time. Thousands die and tens of thousands more are forced from their homes every year in Colombia's decades-old guerrilla war.

Three busses were fire-bombed in the capital city Bogota Wednesday morning by FARC members, according to police, who said there were no injuries.

No incidents were reported at the country's voting stations.

"Things are calm. Most of us are voting today just as we always have," one Bogota voter told Reuters after casting her ballot.

Uribe has negotiated a peace deal with illegal right-wing paramilitaries, under which about 28,000 fighters have turned in their guns in exchange for reduced jail terms for crimes such as massacre and torture.

Politicians and analysts say the paramilitaries, organised as private militias in the 1980s to fight the rebels, are using Sunday's election to try to increase their power in Congress to avoid being extradited to the United States on cocaine-smuggling charges.

Unlike the paramilitaries, the FARC has refused Uribe's terms for negotiating a peace deal.

Early on Wednesday soldiers seized 6.3 tonnes of cocaine in the Caribbean port city of Barranquilla that was about to be shipped to the United States, the army said.

- REUTERS