Landslide victory for former Colombian defence chief

A former defence minister who led a strong and effective campaign against Marxist rebels has won Colombia's presidency by the largest margin in modern history.

Juan Manuel Santos, a US-educated economist, got 69 per cent of the vote in Sunday's election in a ringing endorsement of his promise to continue the US-backed security policies of the outgoing conservative President Alvaro Uribe that he helped to craft.

Antanas Mockus, who was twice mayor of Bogota and who was running a clean-government campaign as the Green Party's candidate, finished with 28 per cent in an election marked by a low turnout.

Surrounded by his wife and three children during a victory speech to 10,000 supporters, Mr Santos, 58, lionised the man whose defence ministry he ran in 2006-09. "If we have come so far it's because we have been standing on the shoulders of giants," said Mr Santos. "This is also your triumph, President Uribe."

More than 3 per cent of voters tendered protest ballots, indicating dissatisfaction with the conservative political establishment that Mr Santos represents – nearly all the losers of the first round endorsed him – and Mr Mockus' refusal to stand in opposition to it. Mr Mockus ran an anti-corruption campaign that many Colombians considered naive.