BOGOTA, May 27 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - In his victory speech, Colombian President-elect Alvaro Uribe, 49, offered a flimsy olive branch to the insurgents. Uribe swept to power Sunday in war-torn Colombia, on promises to battle drug-funded insurgencies that figure on the U.S. list of terrorist groups.

Uribe, who ran as an independent candidate, won 53 percent of the vote, far ahead of his nearest challenger, the Liberal Party's Horacio Serpa, who polled 32 percent, and resigned as the Party’s head, reported Agence France-Presse (AFP).

By passing the 50 percent mark, Uribe averted the need to face off against his rival in a second round. He will be inaugurated as President on August 7.

"They lost many opportunities for peace. They will always have them," Uribe said, adding that he would seek international mediation.

"The violent groups must know that we are democrats ratifying an offer: let us build democratic security so that they can consider the idea of giving up their rifles, of doing politics without weapons and without being killed."

However, he made it clear negotiations only would be held if the rebels commit to a cease fire and an end to acts of terrorism - a condition rejected in the past by the largest insurgent movement, the leftist Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC).

Shortly before Uribe was officially declared the winner, U.S. Ambassador to Colombia Anne Patterson effectively congratulated him and told him Washington would maintain strong ties with Colombia.

"I believe Colombians wanted to express their rejection of violence in this election," she told Uribe at his campaign headquarters.

Uribe's victory came as no surprise amid widespread discontent with President Andres Pastrana's failed efforts to end a violent political conflict that has raged on for four decades.

A huge security operation involving 212,000 police and soldiers helped ensure that the vast majority of Colombians were able to cast their votes in peace, though there were several isolated incidents and abstention was comparatively high at 54 percent.

Officials earlier expressed fears of attacks by leftist rebels or right-wing paramilitary groups following a campaign marked by assassination attempts, death threats and kidnapping a long shot candidate.

Uribe focused his campaign on the need to get tough with the armed groups blamed for much of the violence that claims more than 23,000 lives a year and forced an estimated two million Colombians to flee their homes.

The former Antioquia governor wants to double the armed forces and form a million-strong civilian militia.

Critics say his proposals would lead to a further intensification of the conflict, while Serpa has accused him of links with the paramilitary United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC), which like the 17,000-strong FARC, rely largely on the illegal drug trade and extortion for their funding.

Electoral observers said that in some areas, paramilitaries campaigned in favor of Uribe, an arch enemy of the leftist FARC and the smaller National Liberation Army (ELN). 

In a congratulatory message late Sunday which Uribe was not likely to welcome, the AUC hailed his victory as "a slap in the face of leftist guerillas."

Uribe denied having any links with the 10,000-strong AUC and insisted the paramilitaries would also be the focus of his campaign against terror.

He said he would seek additional military aid from the United States, which has branded the FARC, ELN and AUC as terrorists. The United States already contributed 1.3 billion dollars, much of it in military aid, to the anti-drug Plan in Colombia.

"We will have very strong ties as we have had with the current government of President Andres Pastrana," Patterson told Uribe.

"We have a very strong common agenda," the ambassador said.

Uribe's success broke with the tradition of establishment candidates alternating power in Colombia, reported BBC’s online news service.
During the campaign, he vowed to re-conquer the half of Colombia held by armed groups, however on Sunday he appeared ready to give negotiations a new chance. 

Uribe's landslide victory is nothing short of an overwhelming endorsement by the voters for his plans to increase military spending and broaden the 38-year-old civil war, according to BBC. 

Uribe, due to succeed incumbent President Andres Pastrana in August, promised his government would provide "democratic security for all". 
It would be "security, so [the rebels] don't kidnap the businessman, so they don't kill the labor leader, so they don't extort the rancher, so they don't force the peasant to flee his home". 

Official figures for the election show that only 46% of registered voters turned out, a low figure even for Colombia. 

The main leftist rebel group, FARC, declared a boycott of the polls and tried to disrupt them with car bombs and threats. 

But there was little actual violence on polling-day as the government deployed over 200,000 police and soldiers. 

The National Registrar's office in Bogota said the FARC caused difficulties in fewer than 10 of 1,000 municipalities. 

The Colombian Leftist guerillas number about 22,000. About 3,500 people are killed every year in the four-decade long civil war. An earlier civil war, in 1948-1958, cost about 300,000 lives.