Colombia president weakened at polls

Uribe is facing a double defeat

Voters in the Colombian capital, Bogota, have chosen a former trade union leader as the first left-wing mayor of the city.

The election of Luis Eduardo Garzon - an ex-communist who came third in last year's presidential election - is being seen as a setback for the conservative president, Alvaro Uribe.

The result crowned a weekend of electoral defeat for Mr Uribe, whose plans to overhaul the political system and push through austerity measures apparently failed to gain enough support in a referendum on Saturday.

Election officials in Bogota said that with most votes counted in the mayoral race, Mr Garzon had taken nearly 47% of the ballot.

His government-backed rival, Juan Lozano, who had also been endorsed by popular outgoing mayor Antonas Mockus, got 40%.

The mayor of Bogota is regarded as a prestigious political post and will give the left-wing opposition a platform from which to criticise Mr Uribe.

Mr Garzon, popularly known as Lucho, has pledged to help improve the lives of the poor in Bogota.

His slogan - "No triumphalism, no arrogance" - was intended to set himself apart from the aggressive style of the president.

Lost opportunity

On Saturday, President Uribe suffered a reverse in his plans to transform the country's political and economic system.

He called a referendum to seek public backing for 15 reforms, but it seems most did not get enough support to be validated.

Delays in counting mean the full result is not likely to be known until later in the week.

The low turnout in the referendum is blamed on confusion caused by the complex questions and fear of violence.

President Uribe's office issued a statement on Sunday asking Colombians to be patient and urging election officials to finish the count as quickly as possible. But Defence Minister Martha Lucia Ramirez has already acknowledged defeat.

"All Colombians have lost an opportunity to adopt structural reforms," Associated Press quoted her as saying.

REFERENDUM ISSUES Freezing public workers' salaries State pensions Regional auditing offices Funding education and healthcare Destination of oil revenues Congressional voting Numbers of congressmen Role of congress Government funding of regional projects

Almost all the ballot papers have been counted but around 2% of ballots, mainly from remote provinces, have still to be scrutinised.

"The final result should be ready by Wednesday or Thursday," a spokeswoman for the electoral office told Reuters.

It appears most of the measures received overwhelming support, but to pass, each point needed to be voted on by at least 25% of registered voters.

Many people appear to have left some sections of the referendum ballot blank, so rendering the result void.

Death threats

The authorities are claiming success in Sunday's local polls which passed off without major violence, unlike the referendum vote on Saturday when at least 13 people were killed and more than 20 wounded.

But the BBC's Jeremy McDermott in Bogota says the rebels had already done a great deal of damage before Sunday's voting started.

At least 30 candidates were killed and a dozen kidnapped in the run-up to the elections, and more than 160 people withdrew their candidacy citing death threats.