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 The result consolidated President Juan Manuel Santos as
front-runner in a presidential vote on May 25 but thins the majority
he will rely on if re-elected, for legislative support to implement
a peace deal with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or
FARC rebels, if talks succeed.
Santos is seeking a second term to allow him time to complete
negotiations with the FARC that could end a war that has killed
around 220,000 and transform Colombia's political makeup if the
rebels' gain the political participation they seek.
Uribe is a fierce critic of the government who believes the FARC
should instead be beaten militarily. His party will likely seek to
obstruct legislation if a peace deal is reached that would enable
FARC rebels to enter the political system without serving
considerable jail time.
With 95 percent of votes counted, 62-year-old Santos' center-right U
Party emerged the single biggest party in both Congressional houses
with 15 percent of the vote for each.
Including votes for coalition parties including the Conservative,
Liberal, Green, Radical Change and U parties, the alliance held on
to a majority of the 166 seats in the lower house and 102 in the
Senate.
Uribe's Centro Democratico garnered almost 15 percent of votes in
the Senate where the ex-president will take up a seat marking his
return to political office after his mandate ended in 2010. The
party won just under 10 percent of votes for the lower house.
The secretive peace talks reached a partial accord late last year on
the FARC's participation in politics, a highly controversial item on
the five-point agenda. Any deal with the rebels would be put to the
nation in a referendum, and then to congress to devise laws for its
implementation.
Despite slow but encouraging progress at the negotiations in Cuba's
capital Havana that began in late 2012, the decision to engage in
peace talks with the guerrillas remains divisive and will be pivotal
in voters' choice of president in May.
URIBE FEARS FARC IMPUNITY
Some 32 million Colombians are eligible to vote, though
congressional elections have a particularly high abstention rate and
less than half that number turned up at polling stations in a vote
that passed off in generally peaceful conditions.
Ex-president Uribe became the de facto opposition and Santos'
fiercest critic shortly after backing him for office in 2010.
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The two fell out when Santos mended ties with Venezuela's
then-President Hugo Chavez, who had engaged in a diplomatic tussle
with Uribe for years. The acrimony worsened when Santos announced
peace talks with the FARC, seen as a terrorist group by the United
Sates and the European Union.
"I'm afraid of what will happen if an impunity pact is signed with
terrorist leaders," Uribe said at the close of his campaign. "When
crime is a champion, there's no condition in the heart to forgive
the criminal. The lack of justice may lead to peace accords in
Havana but more violence in Colombia."
Colombia, a recipient of hundreds of millions of dollars in annual
U.S. anti-narcotics aid, has fought the FARC, right-wing
paramilitaries and a smaller rebel group, the ELN, since 1964. More
than 200,000 people have died and millions have been displaced.
Santos is expected to reveal soon that the ELN will also start peace
talks with his government, which is likely to give a further boost
to his chances of securing another term.
Polls show Santos is likely to reach a second round of voting on
June 15 with Oscar Ivan Zuluaga, the candidate for Uribe's party.
The top two contenders go to a runoff if neither garners more than
50 percent of ballots cast in the first round.
Santos will also need backing in congress to pass reforms that would
help bolster Colombia's $350 billion economy, create new jobs and
cut the poverty rate, which affects about half the nation's
population of 47 million.
(Additional reporting by Andres Rojas, Camilo Cohecha and Peter
Murphy in Bogota; editing by Daniel Wallis, Rosalind Russell and
Eric Walsh)
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