Drug Foe Elected, Vows End to Colombia Terror : South America: President-elect also says industrial nations are not doing enough to cut consumption.

Cesar Gaviria, the candidate with the toughest stance against Colombia’s violent cocaine traffickers, won the nation’s presidential election Sunday and called for the eradication of “narco-terrorism.”

“We have to eradicate it from our life, from our society,” Gaviria said in a radio interview Sunday evening after his victory was assured. “There is nothing that threatens our civilized life and our possibilities for progress and prosperity more than narco-terrorism.”

Later, flanked by bodyguards, he spoke at a victory meeting in a downtown hotel. “We will defeat narco-terrorism, but narco-trafficking is certainly a multilateral problem, and the industrialized countries are doing little to face the problem of drug consumption,” he said.

Official results late Sunday from three-quarters of the ballot boxes, or more than 5 million votes, gave Gaviria 47.3% and an irreversible lead over the No. 2 candidate in a field of 12.

The country’s chronic violence cast a shadow of tension over the elections, although no fatal incidents were reported during the voting. Guerrillas and narco-terrorists have been accused of killing hundreds of Colombians during the campaign, including three presidential candidates.

Sunday morning, rebels of the National Liberation Army made several attacks in provincial areas. No deaths were reported, but five police officers in Santander department, west of Bogota, were wounded, radio stations reported.

Authorities canceled voting in several villages because guerrillas stole or burned ballots and other election documents.

Defying the bloody terrorist campaign by traffickers, Gaviria has vowed to fight them “without concessions” as a matter of principle. “We cannot renounce the defense of principles because of terrorist acts,” he had said on the eve of the elections.

He had predicted a popular mandate to press his hard-line policy. “I believe a vote near 50% is a sufficient mandate,” he said.

The narco-terror campaign by Colombia’s drug barons has its roots in the Aug. 18 assassination of Luis Carlos Galan, a Liberal presidential hopeful. After his slaying, the government began a crackdown on the drug lords, extraditing several suspects to the United States. In reaction, the drug traffickers have waged a terrorist campaign against the government in which scores have been slain.

Representing a new generation in the governing Liberal Party, Gaviria will succeed President Virgilio Barco Vargas in August. Barco was constitutionally barred from reelection.

Sunday’s partial returns gave 26.8% of the votes to Alvaro Gomez, leader of a Social Conservative Party splinter group; 11.5% to Antonio Navarro of the Patriotic Alliance M-19, a movement founded by former leftist guerrillas, and 10.4% to Rodrigo Lloreda, the Conservative candidate.

More than 90% of the voters also approved a ballot measure calling for a constitutional assembly that all four major candidates said was needed to make government and judicial reforms.

Gaviria, 43, describes himself as a centrist. He has a degree in economics and served in Barco’s Cabinet as minister of finance and of government. He has been a member of the lower house of Congress.

More than 200,000 police and military troops patrolled the country and guarded 7,100 polling places during the day.

Voter turnout was heavy in many Bogota voting places. Even before polls closed, Bogotanos began gathering in street rallies and parading along avenues in cars, waving their candidates’ banners, cheering and honking horns.

Turnout was lighter in Medellin, Colombia’s most violent city and home of the so-called Medellin cartel of cocaine traffickers. City officials imposed curfews for the three nights before the election after a series of bloody attacks.

On Saturday, police in Bogota announced that they had seized more than a ton of dynamite and arrested six men accused of making bomb attacks in Bogota for the cartel.

One of those arrested was an air force sergeant who worked at an air base where Barco’s presidential plane is based, police said. The report revived recurrent fears of narco-terrorist penetration in security agencies.

Another man arrested was identified as the brother of a man known as “Tyson,” who police say coordinates terrorist attacks for fugitive Pablo Escobar, Colombia’s most notorious drug lord. Authorities have accused Escobar of ordering numerous fatal bombings and the assassinations of the three presidential candidates.

In addition to Galan, on March 26, an assassin opened fire on a domestic airline flight and killed candidate Carlos Pizarro of the M-19. Bernardo Jaramillo, candidate of the leftist Patriotic Union, was killed March 22.

Gaviria will govern with Liberal Party majorities in both houses of Congress, which was renewed in March elections.

Colombia, with 32 million people, has the second-largest national population in South America after Brazil. Nearly 14 million were eligible to vote Sunday.

Colombian presidents have been elected by popular vote throughout this century except for a period of military dictatorship from 1953 to 1958. From 1958 to 1974, Conservatives and Liberals alternated in power under a “National Front” agreement between the two traditional parties.

Domination by Liberals and Conservatives has limited popular participation in government and has often blocked social reforms. Gaviria has pledged to work for change.

“In a way, we have all believed that one of the reasons for the guerrilla violence has been because we have had a relatively closed system,” he said in an interview Saturday.

Mechanic Eduardo Uriza, 27, said he voted for Gaviria because he is competent and represents new ideas.

“I think that with a Gaviria government, we can fight the drug traffickers and all of the decadent bourgeoisie,” Uriza said at a Bogota polling place.

PERILOUS PRESIDENCY--Gaviria is the cocaine cartels’ No. 1 enemy--and target. A14