Isolated incidents of violence have been reported as Colombians cast their ballots in today’s presidential elections.
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Colombian voters are frisked as they go the polls today. Photo: Reuters
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One woman died in northwestern Colombia when insurgents of the National Liberation Army (ELN) held up the ambulance in which she was being taken to hospital, police said. A truck driver also was killed by the rebels.
Polling stations in five municipalities remained shut after members of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) destroyed the ballots, according to electoral authorities.
Officials said 600 polling stations in threatened areas had to be moved to safer locations. Outgoing President Andres Pastrana said voting would be impossible in about seven per cent of the country.
More than 210,000 security forces were deployed across the conflict-wracked country.
Mr Pastrana urged voters to respond to the violence of insurgent groups with their ballots.
"While they continue using bullets, explosives, kidnappings and massacres against the Colombian people, we will use the most important weapon we have, the weapon of democracy," he said after casting his vote in central Bogota.
Mr Pastrana is backed by the US who provide his administration with massive military aid in his battle against drug barrons and revolutionary groups of the both the left and the right.
Electoral campaigning ahead of the balloting was marked by assassination attempts, death threats, a kidnapping and a general increase in the violence that has ravaged this South American country for four decades.
AFP