Santos re-elected president of Colombia

Juan Manuel Santos won re-election Sunday in Colombia's tightest presidential contest in years, an endorsement of his 18-month-old peace talks to end the Western Hemisphere's longest-running conflict.

Santos defeated right-wing challenger Oscar Ivan Zuluaga, leading with 53 percent to 47 percent of valid votes Sunday with 95 percent of precincts reporting. Zuluaga conceded defeat shortly after the numbers were reported Sunday.

Zuluaga was backed by former two-term President Alvaro Uribe, who many consider the true challenger.

Zuluaga had accused Santos of selling Colombia out in the Cuba-based negotiations and insisted he would halt them unless the rebels, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, ceased all hostilities.

Still, the bulk of Colombia's left had endorsed Santos as, says political scientist Arlene Tickner of Universidad de los Andes, he steered the nation to "a historic juncture at which the possibility of putting a peaceful end to the conflict needs to be seized."

Santos won important endorsements last week: He got the backing of 80 top business leaders and announced exploratory talks with the National Liberation Army, Colombia's other, far smaller rebel band.

Yet the U.S.-educated incumbent has a "severe likeability and trust problem," says analyst Adam Isacson of the Washington Office on Latin America, and has been "unable to shake the image of an out-of-touch Bogota aristocrat who will promise everything and deliver little."

Santos is also opposed by Colombia's cattle ranchers and palm oil plantation owners, beneficiaries of a deal Uribe made with far-right paramilitaries that dismantled their militias. Large landholders had by then consolidated control over territory that the militias had largely rid of rebels while driving at least 3 million poor Colombians off the lands. They dislike Santos' peace process.

The slow pace of talks has not helped Santos' image. Framework agreements have been reached on agrarian reform, dismantling the illegal drug trade and a rebel role in national politics.

The peace process also ranks relatively low on most Colombians' list of priorities. The Gallup poll found less than 5 percent of respondents to believe the FARC will be the next president's main problem. Spreading the benefits of a growing economy is more important to many.

Economic growth averaged 4.5 percent annually during Santos' four years and 2.5 million jobs were added. But analysts say the president has done little to improve education, health care and infrastructure.

The campaign was the Andean nation's dirtiest in years and Zuluaga shocked the incumbent's camp by outpolling Santos in a field of five candidates in the election's first round on May 25.

The Associated Press