Colombia elections seen as blow to Pastrana

BOGOTA, Colombia (Reuters) -- Colombia's elections for thousands of local and state posts came off peacefully on Sunday, but the outcome was seen as a blow to embattled President Andres Pastrana midway through his four-year term.

Pastrana's Conservative Party lost races for governor and mayor in traditional strongholds and Liberal and independent candidates claimed victories across the country.

Independents won mayoral elections in four of the country's largest cities including the capital of Bogota.

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"It was a punishment vote against the current government, which has done nothing to improve the living conditions of Colombians," said Liberal Party leader Horacio Serpa.

In Bogota, Antanas Mockus, a former university professor who served as Bogota's mayor from 1995-97, beat Conservative and Liberal candidates to win a new term.

The country's first indigenous governor was elected in the southwest province Cauca, and a shoeshine man made a successful bid for the Bogota city council where he vowed to work for the poor.

"I don't want luxury cars or cellular phones," said Luis Eduardo Diaz. "This money must be invested in the people."

Aside from battles between members of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and army troops in outlying provinces that left two rebels dead, voting proceeded without major disruptions after weeks of attacks, officials said.

The South American nation is engulfed in an escalating armed conflict fuelled by the drug trade that has claimed at least 35,000 lives since 1990.

Campaigns were marred by violence as leftist rebels and right-wing paramilitary squads sought to influence the outcome of the poll.

At least 20 local candidates were killed and more than 200 kidnapped. Scores of others withdrew their candidacies under threat.

About half of Colombia's 23 million registered voters went to the polls, a typical turnout in the nation of 40 million inhabitants.

Amid political violence and economic recession, Pastrana's public approval is at its lowest since he took office, with a 30-percent favorable rating.

He has faced mounting criticism over his failure to negotiate a peace settlement with rebels following nearly four decades of armed conflict.

And his $7.5 billion Plan Colombia, designed to push the guerrillas toward a peace deal by stemming the lucrative drug trade financing their movements, is seen by domestic critics, Latin American neighbors and European nations as a largely U.S. military operation.

The U.S. contribution of $1.3 billion in mostly military aid makes up the largest chunk of foreign funding for the plan.

On Sunday, in the heart of a demilitarized zone controlled by the FARC in southern Colombia, where stalled peace talks have been under way since 1999, a billboard indicted Plan Colombia.

"Plan Colombia -- the gringos supply the weapons and Colombia supplies the dead," said the sign on the central plaza of San Vicente del Caguan, the largest town in the guerrilla sanctuary.

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