Colombia's president-elect, Mr Andres Pastrana, announced plans to hold direct talks with the guerrilla leader, Mr Manuel Marulanda, as early as next week, paying back a debt of gratitude to the ageing rebel whose last-minute support may have swung the Sunday election Mr Pastrana's way.
The announcement was made even before the official election results were declared. Mr Pastrana polled more than six million votes, twice the number garnered by the current President, Mr Ernesto Samper, in his 1994 victory.
Colombians voted in greater numbers than usual, with the rival candidate, Mr Horacio Serpa, finishing just under the six million vote mark. The unusually high turnout, 58 per cent of the electorate, was attributed to growing insecurity, rising unemployment, and a deepening economic crisis which has pushed the country to the brink of civil war.
"I'm going to be the President of the poor," Mr Pastrana said, acknowledging a key reason for Colombia's prolonged internal war. `I don't want any more hunger in Colombia."
Mr Pastrana faces an uphill struggle, however, beginning with his own conservative business allies, who have aggressively resisted all efforts to narrow the gap between rich and poor.
Early last week, as opinion polls indicated a dead heat in the second-round runoff between the conservative Mr Pastrana and the liberal Mr Serpa, the Revolutionary Armed Forces (FARC) leader, Mr Marulanda, issued a public communique, calling on voters to opt for Mr Pastrana "in the interest of peace".
The communique was issued shortly after a Pastrana emissary contacted Mr Marulanda's guerrillas and fellow National Liberation rebels (ELN), who together have 18,000 combatants and control large swathes of land in isolated rural areas.
President Samper promised "all necessary support" for Mr Pastrana's peace initiative, aimed at ending a 50-year-old conflict which has left one million displaced and thousands dead.
In a further advance towards a meaningful peace process, rightwing paramilitary groups responsible for thousands of deaths have pledged "not to interfere" with Mr Pastrana's efforts.
The sudden optimism generated by Mr Pastrana's speedy move may be short-lived, however. "The conflict goes back much farther than one administration," a Colombian political analyst, Mr Javier Guerrero, told The Irish Times yesterday. "It's about a political regime which tolerates no opposition."
Colombia's Liberal and Conservative parties have ruled the country for the past century, ruthlessly crushing any alternatives. The two parties legalised private armies and resisted land reform, turning the countryside into a bloody battlefield and leaving 90 per cent of Colombians expressing a desire to leave the country, according to a recent poll.
Mr Marulanda's life mirrors Colombia's painful history. Mr Marulanda (69) has spent the past 50 years in the mountains, surviving repeated all-out army assaults, a dictatorship, and a dozen presidents. Most Colombians believed he was dead.
Mr Pastrana (43), whose victory ended 12 years of power for Mr Samper's Liberal Party, said the two men held a cordial and constructive half-hour meeting on Tuesday to co-ordinate the hand-over of power on August 7th.
Washington welcomed Mr Pastrana's victory as an opportunity to "turn a new page" in the two countries' strained ties.
By yesterday afternoon, however, Colombians had set aside their worries, downed tools and steeled their nerves in advance of the most pressing issue currently facing the nation - Colombia's World Cup qualifying game against England.
The prospect of their soccer team qualifying for the next round is enough to restore battered self-esteem, if only fleetingly.