By Nelson Bocanegra, Luis Jaime Acosta and Alexander Villegas
BOGOTA, June 21 (Reuters) - Colombian right-wing candidate Abelardo De La Espriella appeared headed to a narrow victory in Sunday's presidential vote, leading his leftist rival with nearly all ballots counted as voters bet on his promise of a crackdown on crime and a stronger economy.
De La Espriella had 49.65% of the vote while his rival, Senator Ivan Cepeda, trailed by some 246,000 votes at 48.70%, according to an initial tally of the runoff election from the country's national registrar.
Cepeda, 63, had vowed to continue the policies of President Gustavo Petro, a former rebel and the country's first leftist president, including state pension payments for the poor, union-backed labor reforms, a moratorium on new oil projects, and peace talks with armed groups that have fought the state for decades.
De La Espriella has blamed Petro for the country's economic and security troubles and has vowed to end talks with rebels and criminal groups, while boosting the oil and gas sector, lowering taxes and reducing the size of the state by up to 40%. He has said, however, that he will preserve Petro's 23% increase in the minimum wage, along with other popular social measures.
“It is a victory for Colombia — a change after four lost years with no clear direction,” said Viviana Olivos, a 46-year-old mechanical engineer, as she gathered with other De La Espriella supporters in coastal Barranquilla to hear him speak at a scheduled appearance later on Sunday.
The closeness of the race, with less than one percentage point separating the two candidates, will likely force De La Espriella to water down some of his proposals in order to get support from a divided Congress. Cepeda's Historic Pact party has more seats than any other party in both the Senate and the lower house, although no party has a majority.
De La Espriella, a lawyer with no prior political experience, will also have to grapple with high public debt.
In a short live-stream appearance on his YouTube channel, he said he had spoken with U.S. President Donald Trump, who offered his congratulations.
Major business guilds, including the Colombo-American Chamber of Commerce, the mining association and the banking association, published statements congratulating De La Espriella on his victory. In upper- and middle-class neighborhoods in Bogota and Medellin, flag-waving supporters cheered, honked car horns and set off fireworks.
More than 26.3 million Colombians cast ballots of the 41.4 million eligible to vote. Some 426,000 voters turned in blank ballots, usually seen as a protest vote, the registrar figures showed.
Cepeda told his supporters at an event in Bogota that he would await a final, ballot-by-ballot check of the initial count, saying his campaign is challenging results from some 33,000 ballot boxes, out of 122,000 in total. His supporters are a significant political force, he added, and must have a seat at the table.
"We are open to dialogue; we are willing to reach agreements as long as they are respectful, genuine, and reflected in political actions that benefit the nation and preserve the historical progress we have already achieved,” Cepeda said.
His supporters remained hopeful that the verification, which in the first round showed little difference to the initial count, could hand them victory. Petro earlier posted videos on social media that he said showed instances of fraud, adding later that because the race was so close, the country would need to await the final count.
“We are hopeful that now, with the vote count and the work of lawyers, votes can be recovered,” Yesin Moreno, a 32-year-old audiovisual director, said as he waited to hear Cepeda speak.
The head of the national registrar, Hernan Penagos, said verification was beginning at the municipal level and would soon extend across the country. A final verified count, overseen by notaries and judges, is required by Colombian law.
REGIONAL SHIFT
Voters in Chile, Argentina, Costa Rica, Bolivia and Ecuador have elected right-wing presidents in their most recent elections.
In Peru, where votes from a June 7 contest are still being counted, conservative Keiko Fujimori, daughter of former President Alberto Fujimori, who served 16 years in prison for human rights abuses, appears poised to win the presidency after three failed attempts.
Most of those elections, like Colombia's, were driven by concerns over crime and a weak economy.
In Colombia, peace talks initiated by Petro have largely failed as armed groups grew in power and numbers, and drug trafficking gangs have expanded, leading to spikes in murders and extortion along the Caribbean coast.
De La Espriella has cast Cepeda, the son of a murdered communist leader, and Petro as allies of criminals, though Petro's government says it has seized more cocaine than any other government. Cepeda has rejected the accusations as lacking evidence.
Cepeda has criticized De La Espriella's work as a lawyer for individuals tied to right-wing paramilitary groups and corruption cases, including Alex Saab, who faces U.S. charges alleging that he laundered money for ousted Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro. De La Espriella says his professional relationships do not involve any complicity or crime.
Donald Trump has moved to increase the U.S. presence and influence in the region, including by arresting Maduro, conducting deadly strikes against small boats in the Caribbean, which he accused of drug trafficking without presenting evidence, and creating the Shield of the Americas, a military alliance of right-wing leaders pledging to fight drug trafficking.
Trump, who has publicly feuded with Petro, openly endorsed De La Espriella this month, saying the results of Sunday's race are "very important to the future of Colombia and its relationship to the United States."
(Reporting by Nelson Bocanegra, Luis Jaime Acosta, Alexander Villegas, Carlos Vargas and Julia Symmes Cobb; Editing by Julia Symmes Cobb, Rod Nickel, Edmund Klamann and Aurora Ellis)
