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Bogotans choose dictator's grandson to be next mayor

The leftist grandson of a dictator was elected on Sunday as mayor of Bogota, which is considered Colombia's second-most powerful elected office, in regional and local voting that was largely free of violence.

Samuel Moreno, candidate for the leftist Democratic Pole Alternative party, won 44 percent of the votes compared to 28 percent for his main challenger, former mayor Enrique Penalosa, according to the election registry.

The new mayor of Colombia's capital faces a potentially fractious relationship with conservative Colombian President Alvaro Uribe, who made a series of statements seen by many as pleas to voters to reject Moreno, including a nationally televised speech on election eve.

Bogota's current mayor, Luis Eduardo Garzon, belongs to Moreno's party and consecutive wins could boost the Alternative Democratic Pole's standing ahead of a 2010 presidential election. Bogota, with nearly 7 million people, is home to a sixth of Colombia's population.

Voters also elected 32 governorships, 1,098 mayorships and thousands of lesser offices across the country choosing from about 87,000 candidates.

The runup to the elections saw about 30 candidates killed, according to the UN High Commission for Human Rights, and many had feared election-day violence. The military said 170,000 soldiers and police were deployed.

But Sunday passed largely free of violence and the government declared the elections a success. The police reported one officer killed in the western province of Cauca.

"With their vote, the Colombian people said no to the killers of democracy," said General Freddy Padilla, armed forces commander.

Colombians closely followed the ups and downs of the race in Bogota, a campaign condemned by many as dirty.

Moreno, 47, who promised to construct a metro in the capital, is grandson of General Gustavo Rojas Pinilla. The general seized power in 1953 in what he said was an effort to stop sectarian violence. Thrown out of power, Rojas Pinilla stood for election in 1970 but lost in a vote that was widely considered fraudulent.

Born in Miami, Moreno attended Harvard before becoming a senator in Colombia. As more scandals swirled around his campaign, Moreno complained of bias in the media in favor of his opponent, who was backed by many in the wealthy north of the capital.

But Moreno shrugged off controversies -- notably a pro-Moreno article posted on a Web site with close links to Colombia's largest leftist rebel group, and his statement in a debate that he would buy 50 votes if he knew his rival had purchased 50,000.

He received further criticism when an interview from 1995 was dug up that seemed to suggest he supported armed struggle against the government in certain circumstances.
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