Colombians vote to renew tainted Congress

Conservative Party is expected to keep its majority in both houses, which currently stands at 72 out of 102 seats in the Senate.

Colombians voted Sunday to renew both chambers of their scandal-tainted Congress as major political parties chose candidates for the May election to succeed President Alvaro Uribe.

The conservative Uribe administration is Washington's top ally in South America both in the fight against regional drug trafficking and in countering the growing influence of leftist-populist President Hugo Chavez in Venezuela.

However Uribe's bid for a third term in office was blocked by a Constitutional Court ruling, and there is no clear successor.

Sunday's vote will renew Congress and also kick off internal consultations in the major Conservative and Green parties to pick a candidate for the May 30 presidential election.

Uribe's ruling Conservative Party is expected to keep its majority in both houses, which currently stands at 72 out of 102 seats in the Senate, and 103 out of 166 in the House of Representatives.

After two terms in office -- ending in August -- Uribe's nurturing of the economy to its best performance in 30 years and his crackdown on the leftist rebel Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) have earned him a near 70 percent popularity rating.

Colombia's congress however is not nearly as popular: scores of lawmakers have been investigated for alleged links to paramilitary groups, and twelve were found guilty and convicted.

The Organization of American States has warned that drug cartels could also influence the elections with their mountains of cash: the group's Electoral Observation Mission has already reported 3.5 million dollars of illegal contributions for one senate race alone.

"In Colombia there is still a risk drug trafficking will try to influence politics, as it does in the entire world," OAS election observer mission chief Enrique Correa said in an interview published Saturday.

One political party has already been struck from the voting list on suspicion its leaders had links to paramilitaries, though opposition groups claim the party simply renamed itself and kept the same people, or their relatives, in charge.

On the presidential level, conservatives vying to succeed Uribe include former defense minister Juan Manuel Santos, 58; ex-foreign affairs minister Noemi Sanin, 61; and former senator German Vargas Lleras, 48.

Opposition presidential hopefuls include Rafael Pardo, 47, an economist and former defense minister from the once-powerful Liberal Party, and Gustavo Petro, 50, a former senator, ex-M-19 guerrilla and economist from the leftist Democratic Alternative.

Surveys have Santos leading the pack, followed by Petro and Vargas Lleras.

Polling stations opened at 8:00 am (1200 GMT) throughout the South American country and were expected to close at 4:00 pm (2000 GMT).

Some 29.8 million Colombians are registered to vote to choose from 2,539 candidates to fill Congress' combined 268 seats.

Five members will also be elected to the regional Andean Parliament.

On Saturday Uribe said he trusted the elections "will be peaceful across the territory... The armed forces are making an extra effort and we hope everything turns out well for democracy in our homeland."

Some 150,000 military and police have fanned out across Colombia to safeguard some 77,000 polling stations.

The president, however, acknowledged some candidates had been threatened.

"The government is aware of some pressures, including from FARC's Anncol website, that threaten people who support my (political) positions, but civic valor in Colombia is so much stronger," he said.

This electoral campaign was the least violent in years, despite the kidnapping and subsequent killing of Caqueta department governor Luis Francisco Cuellar by the FARC Marxist rebels in December.

Some 210 political kidnappings took place during the 2002 elections, and seven others in 2006.