Colombia Votes in Presidential Poll Seen as Referendum on Peace Talks

Colombians went to the polls Sunday in a cliffhanger presidential election that has become a referendum on peace talks with leftist guerrillas.

Polls opened around the country at 8 am (1300 GMT) and were to close at 4 pm (2100 GMT), election officials said.

Voters will choose between President Juan Manuel Santos, who is seeking a second term, and Oscar Ivan Zuluaga, a vehement critic of the president's peace talks with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC).

The bid to end Latin America's longest guerrilla war has emerged as the central issue of the run-off elections with Colombians torn between the hopes and fears aroused by a mudslinging campaign.

Zuluaga, 55, has long been opposed to the peace talks but now says that he would negotiate with the rebels under stricter conditions.

For Santos, 62, the stark choice for voters is between "the end of the conflict or an endless conflict."

The internal war, with its violent cocktail of rebels, paramilitary militia and criminal gangs, has left more than 220,000 people dead and forced five million people to leave their homes over the past half century.

In the first round of balloting on May 25, Zuluaga gained 29 percent of the vote against 26 percent for Santos.

A runoff was necessary since neither won more than 50 percent of the vote, and pre-election surveys show no clear winner.

Both Santos and Zuluaga were cabinet ministers under the hard-line former president Alvaro Uribe who served from 2002 to 2010 and remains a powerful political force.

Santos was Uribe's defense minister, known for an aggressive military campaign that mauled the FARC and killed key rebel leaders.

But Uribe -- who is also a senator-elect -- threw his weight behind Zuluaga, his former finance minister, even calling Santos a traitor for negotiating with the rebels.

The center-right Santos has rallied leftist parties by promising to spend more on social welfare issues. 

His campaign website says that the "cost of the war" with the leftist rebels is nearly 300 dollars, the minimum monthly wage in Colombia, per second.

Even though the economy is growing more than four percent a year, one third of Colombia's 47 million residents live in poverty.

"Social issues are more visible but they remain linked to peace, which the president has kept as the central pillar of his campaign," said political scientist Patricia Munoz Yi from Javeriana University in Bogota.

Once ahead in opinion polls, Santos slipped as the campaign descended into a morass of mudslinging on both sides that included charges of espionage and corruption.

The peace process, recently expanded to also include the smaller National Liberation Army (ELN) guerrillas, could collapse with a Zuluaga victory, said Vicente Torrijos, a political scientist at the Universidad del Rosario.

Founded in the 1960s, the ELN and the FARC are the last leftist guerrilla armies operating in Colombia. They boast 2,500 and 8,000 fighters, respectively.

Talks in Havana with the FARC that began in November 2012 have resulted in agreements on three topics of a six-point agenda.

But at least three major issues remain unresolved: the surrender of weapons, compensation for victims, and how a final agreement would be ratified.

Zuluaga's conditions for talks with the FARC include a permanent guerrilla cease-fire and jail time for its leaders.

More than 32 million Colombians are registered to vote, but with the nation distracted by the World Cup -- Colombia on Saturday defeated Greece 3-0 in their first match -- turnout is uncertain.

Almost 60 percent of voters did not cast ballots in the first round of voting.