DRIVEN BY SECURITY FEARS, COLOMBIANS HEAD TO THE POLLS

BOGOTA, Colombia, May 25 - Clara Elsa Galvis, a school administrator,
describes herself as "completely supportive of peace," and that is why four
years ago she helped vote into office a presidential candidate who had
pledged to negotiate with leftist rebels to end Colombia's grinding civil
conflict.

Now, tears well up in Ms. Galvis's eyes as she talks about what has happened
since President Andres Pastrana embarked on peace talks: the death of a
family member at the hands of rebels, widespread massacres and guerrilla
attacks, the mind-numbing fear that keeps her from venturing outside the
relative safety of this capital.

So on Sunday, when Ms. Galvis goes to the polls along with an estimated 12
million other Colombians to elect a new president, she plans to vote for a
hard-line conservative candidate who promises to double the size of the
security forces to fight the rebels.

"All this tragedy we have had to live with has given us the sense that we
have to react," said Ms. Galvis, who calmly explained her rationale at the
school where she is deputy headmistress. "We have been at war this whole
time, a war disguised as a peace process. Even Pastrana realized this."

Indeed, all across this mountainous Andean country, frustrated voters who
once heartily supported the idea of peace talks are now preparing to cast
their ballots for a candidate who says the only option is "a firm hand"
against the insurgents who have been waging war for nearly 40 years.

It is a remarkable political shift for a centrist country that has long
rejected candidates of the far right or left.

A poll published on Friday predicted that Alvaro Uribe Velez, 49, a hawkish
former governor whose father was slain by guerrillas in a botched kidnapping
attempt, will receive the 50 percent majority needed to avoid a runoff on
June 16. His main opponent, Horacio Serpa, a Liberal Party populist and
former interior minister known for his elegant handlebar mustache, is far
behind in the polls. In a runoff, Mr. Uribe would win handily, according to
the polls.

If elected, Mr. Uribe could usher in a new era in relations between
Washington and Bogota, because the Bush administration is pushing Congress
to permit American assistance for Colombia's counterinsurgency campaign.

The United States has already provided nearly $2 billion in aid since 2000,
though regulations have limited the aid solely to antidrug operations. But
lawmakers on Capitol Hill are increasingly open to the idea of expanding
assistance because many have come to see the rebels as they are viewed here:
as terrorists.

Still, analysts say Congress wants assurances that the next administration
will also crack down on right-wing paramilitary groups, an uncertain
prospect with Mr. Uribe, many observers contend, because of his close ties
to the Colombian right.

"The sense I have is that they're looking to strike a deal with the next
government," said Michael Shifter, who frequently meets with members of
Congress in his work as a senior analyst for Inter-American Dialogue, a
policy analysis group in Washington. "And the deal is, they're willing to
help the Colombians to strengthen the state and assert authority."

Asserting authority across this chaotic country, though, will not be easy.

Some analysts question how effective Mr. Uribe's plans to add 150,000
soldiers and police officers will be against the Revolutionary Armed Forces
of Colombia, which has grown to 17,000 fighters and is considered the
best-equipped and richest guerrilla army in Latin American history. Critics
warn that the candidate, who also promises a network of one million civilian
informers, has sold the country on an easy-fix solution that could instead
widen a conflict that already claims 3,500 lives a year.

"What he offers is a state with minimal liberties under the pretext of
fighting terrorism," said Jorge Rojas of Codhes, a respected advocacy group
for people displaced by violence.

Mr. Serpa has tried to make hay out of Mr. Uribe's hard-line approach,
telling a group of foreign reporters that "many people have heard the siren
song inviting them to total war." Mr. Serpa also proposes fighting the
rebels, but he has implicitly warned that voting for Mr. Uribe would mean
supporting Colombia's feared illegal paramilitary groups, whose brutal war
against the guerrillas is financed by large landowners and drug money.

Other candidates - Luis Eduardo Garzon, a labor leader from the left; Noemi
Sanin, a former foreign minister; and Ingrid Betancourt, a former senator
who was kidnapped by rebels but remains on the ballot - have all spoken of
the need for a negotiated settlement in Colombia, though they have harshly
criticized rights abuses by the rebels.

The idea of negotiating with the rebels, though, has become anathema to
Colombians who believe guerrilla commanders made a mockery of Mr. Pastrana's
peace effort.

"Negotiating with criminals is not negotiating," said Orlando Orjuela, a
businessman whose eldest brother, Hector, was shot by rebels at his farm.
"That is because a criminal is immoral, a criminal is a liar. And that is
what the guerrillas are."

Rebel-sponsored violence in the last week has only served to solidify such
reasoning.

In the last week, guerrillas have blown up electrical power lines and two
bridges. On Thursday, a police raid at a guerrilla safe house in a Bogota
neighborhood netted 1,100 pounds of explosives. Also on Thursday, three
soldiers were killed and nine were reported missing when a patrol triggered
a series of rebel land mines in the north.

The Organization of American States, which has sent an observer mission for
the elections, has heard complaints of rebels intimidating Mr. Uribe's
supporters in dozens of towns and of paramilitary groups doing the same to
Mr. Serpa's sympathizers, said Santiago Murray, who is leading the mission.

Julio Mesa, 55, a hardware store owner, said he had had enough, even though
he initially thought peace could be negotiated.

"All we have is organized crime carried out by a band of terrorists who do
not want peace," he said. "Unfortunately, the only solution is pressure on a
grand scale."

It is a message being heard more and more, and it is not just the
conservatives in this country, political analysts say.

"The voter for Uribe is not an ultrarightist," said Vicente Torrijos of the
Universidad del Rosario. "It is a person tired of the way security and peace
have been handled, a person who prefers the conflict option instead of
negotiations that failed."

Some of those Uribe supporters have been directly touched by the violence.
In Ms. Galvis's case, her cousin's husband was kidnapped by rebels and
killed days later, while the cousin, who was not informed of his death,
spent a year collecting money to make a ransom payment. Fear of kidnapping
and other violence has also kept Ms. Galvis and her husband from visiting
the weekend home they built outside Bogota.

The threat of violence has also affected the school where she has long
worked, since administrators ended a program for visiting American
professors, as well as the class trips that students used to take to far
corners of the country.

"When I look at these kids and see what we lost, it just kills me," she
said. "I am betting on this for them. I do not need to go to my country
house, but I would like to see them have the chance to get to know their
country."