Juan Manuel Santos, a former defence and finance minister, last night swept to victory in Colombia's run-off election to succeed President Alvaro Uribe as the leader of the Latin American state.
Mr Santos vowed to maintain Mr Uribe's security and pro-business policies, which have drawn in record levels of foreign investment and helped weaken the region's oldest rebel insurgency.
Colombia is enjoying an oil and mining boom despite lingering violence from its cocaine-fueled conflict.
Mr Santos, backed by conservative Mr Uribe, won 69 per cent of the votes against former Bogota mayor Antanas Mockus, who trailed with 27.5 per cent after almost all polling stations reported results from yesterday's run-off election, officials said.
The Santos victory is likely to help Colombia's peso, stock market and local TES bonds as investors applaud continuity of policies already praised by Wall Street.
A US and British-trained economist, Mr Santos received more than 9 million votes - a record for a Colombian president - and will take office in August with a strong mandate and solid support in the Congress.
"Colombia expects so much from us and we are not going to let them down," Mr Santos (58) told cheering crowds in a Bogota hall decked with the white banners of Mr Uribe's U Party.
"This is your victory too, President Uribe."
Mr Uribe is still popular after two terms during which he weakened left-wing FARC rebels and disarmed outlawed paramilitaries who once battled, bombed and kidnapped across Latin America's No. 4 oil producer.
In a sharp reminder of the conflict still facing Mr Santos, seven police officers were killed in a landmine blast near the Venezuelan border on election day and troops killed six guerrillas in clashes in a central region.
"The time is up for the FARC," Mr Santos said. "We will keep fighting against the enemies of the state."
Mr Santos, who helped Colombia over a fiscal crisis in the 1990s, must tackle double-digit unemployment, a stubborn deficit and a costly public health system as the economy recovers from the effects of the recent global downturn.
Tensions with Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez, who has cut trade in a dispute weighing on Colombia's economy, will also simmer on under Santos. The two men - who Santos says are "oil and water" - have clashed repeatedly.
The head of Uribe's large U Party, Mr Santos won the support of the Conservative and Cambio Radical parties after the first round and part of the opposition Liberal Party.
Since Mr Uribe came to power in 2002, violence has dropped sharply thanks to billions of dollars in aid from Washington to fight guerrillas and drug barons.
But Mr Uribe's second four-year term was marred by scandals over corruption and rights abuses, including arrests of lawmakers for colluding with death squads and a probe into state spies illegally wiretapping journalists and judges.
Mr Santos, son of one of Bogota's elite families who is meticulous about his appearance and quotes former US president Franklin Roosevelt, distanced himself from the scandals, portraying himself as an experienced technocrat.
Reuters