Image copyright AFP Image caption Iván Duque celebrates with his family and supporters in Bogotá

Iván Duque, the conservative political newcomer who was elected as Colombia's president on Sunday, says he wants to unite the Andean country.

Mr Duque spoke of mending the fissures which had opened up in Colombia after a divisive election campaign.

But he also said he wants to see changes to the historic but controversial peace deal agreed with Farc rebels in 2016.

Mr Duque beat his left-wing rival, Gustavo Petro, by 12 percentage points.

He received 54% of the vote in Sunday's run-off election.

The 41-year-old candidate for the Democratic Centre party says he will overhaul the agreement that guaranteed the rebels seats in Congress and allowed them to contest elections.

He also says he will impose tougher punishments on crimes allegedly committed by the rebels during the brutal five-decade conflict with the government.

"With humility and honour, I tell the Colombian people that I will give all my energies to unite our country. No more divisions," he told a crowd of jubilant supporters.

"I will not govern with hatred."

Mr Duque is viewed as the business-friendly choice because he wants to cut taxes and boost investment, raising money by shrinking the state.

His running mate, Marta Lucía Ramirez, will become Colombia's first female vice-president.

Fear of the left won out

Image copyright AFP Image caption Gustavo Petro, a former M-19 rebel, lost out to Mr Duque

Katy Watson, BBC Latin America correspondent, Bogotá

In conservative Colombia, it's another win for the right. Rival Gustavo Petro put up a good fight and the fact that a left-wing candidate got to the second round was something Colombia hadn't seen before.

The peace deal meant that left-wing politics became more acceptable and not associated with violence like in the past.

But in the end, the continued fear of the left in this country won out. Mr Duque was seen as the safer pair of hands to lead after more than 50 years of conflict.

With his campaign promise of changing the agreement struck with the Farc rebels, there's a lot of uncertainty about what that will mean for the country's prospects of long-term peace.

Voters in the country were presented with a stark choice between Mr Duque and the leftist ex-guerrilla Gustavo Petro.

Mr Petro's campaign featured promises about creating a more equal society and ensuring people have access to health and education.

He also pledged to take on political elites and redistribute land to the poor.

But the former Bogotá mayor, who supports the peace deal, accepted defeat on Sunday evening.

"Eight million free Colombians taking a stand. There is no defeat here. For now we won't be the government," he said on Twitter.</s>Ivan Duque is the new President of Colombia, winning Sunday's election with fifty-three percent of the vote in the South American country.</s>Colombia has chosen Iván Duque, a conservative neophyte, to be its next president after a long and divisive campaign that often centred on a controversial peace process with leftist rebels the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (Farc).

Duque, who opposes the peace deal, won in a second round runoff election on Sunday with 53.9% of the vote. His vanquished opponent, Bogotá’s former mayor Gustavo Petro – once a leftist militant himself – defends the peace process.

Despite being the first leftist in the conservative country’s history to come so close to the presidency, he lost on the night, taking 41.8% of the vote.

Many now worry about the fate of the fragile peace deal signed with the Farc in 2016, which formally ended 52 years of civil war that left 220,000 dead and seven million displaced.

That deal initially failed to pass a referendum with voters outraged by its guarantees of softer sentencing for rebel leaders and guaranteed seats in congress. It was later amended and ratified by lawmakers, a move some viewed as undemocratic. Sunday gave them another chance to voice their disquiet.

Farc’s wartime leader, Rodrigo Londoño, tweeted after the result: “We have lived the quietest elections of the last decades, the peace process bears fruit. It is a moment of greatness and reconciliation, we respect the decision of the majorities and we congratulate the new president. Now to work, the roads of hope are open.”

Duque promised on the campaign trail to modify the deal’s most contentious components, something that resonated with voters.

On a clear Sunday morning in Bogotá’s central Ciudad Jardín neighbourhood, voters filed into a school repurposed as a voting station when polls opened at 8am. “I am voting for Ívan Duque,” said Marcelo Rodríguez, dressed in a Colombian football shirt. “I want peace but we can’t have it without justice.”

Others at the poll station were less convinced. “Amending a deal is the same as tearing it up,” said Andrea Gómez, a student. “Some people in Colombia won’t be happy without war.”

Duque – who will turn 42 just before taking office on 8 August – will be Colombia’s youngest ever president, though his party, Democratic Center, has a coalition in Congress. He also has the backing of several industry leaders and, perhaps most importantly, ex-president Alvaro Uribe, still an immensely powerful – if divisive – figure in Colombian politics.

Uribe, who dealt severe military blows to the Farc during his tenure from 2002 to 2010, led the campaign against the peace deal in 2016’s referendum. He was Duque’s earliest champion for president, having persuaded his protege to leave a job at the Inter-American Development Bank in Washington DC to fill a party senate seat in 2014.

Duque’s opponents say is little more to than Uribe’s puppet, a charge particularly worrying given the hardline svengali’s authoritarian tendencies.

While president, a state intelligence agency was shut down after Uribe used it to spy on the opposition, journalists and members of the supreme court. His military campaign against the rebels was marked by grave human rights abuses: thousands of civilians were murdered in order to falsely inflate combat statistics.

Both men denied the charge, and accused Petro of being the real threat to democracy. Uribe, after voting in Bogotá’s historic Plaza de Bolívar, said that Duque was the only bulwark against Petro’s “destructive socialism” – the same force he said has mired neighbouring Venezuela in economic and political turmoil.

Petro was reluctant on the campaign trail to distance himself from Venezuela’s late president Hugo Chávez, and with 1 million Venezuelans having fled to Colombia, many here worry that Petro could bring a similar fate.

Duque’s market-friendly economic policies appealed to voters near the Venezuelan border, though younger and more moderate voters worry about his conservative social policies from drug policy and crime to abortion.

The campaign was long and ugly, with stark polarisation revealed in the first round when Duque and Petro eliminated a handful of more moderate rivals. Now, Duque’s job will be build bridges between Colombians divided on ideology and the peace process, with the worst outcome being another flare up of civil war.

“Polarisation is common in politics around the world,” Pedro Piedrahita Bustamente, a political science professor at the University of Medellín previously told the Guardian. “But here, where there is a history of internal armed conflict, it could be a dangerous thing.”</s>(CNN) — Colombians on Sunday cast their ballots in the second round of the presidential election, choosing between conservative candidate Ivan Duque and leftist Gustavo Petro.

Polls opened at 9 a.m. ET and will close at 5 p.m. ET. Results should be known within a few hours of closing.

Voters cast ballots May 27 in Colombia’s presidential election, but no candidate won 50% of the vote. At the time, initial results showed Duque led with 39% of votes. In second place was Petro with 25%, closely trailed by centrist Sergio Fajardo.

The election is seen by some observers as a referendum on the country’s peace deal with FARC rebels.

Six candidates were vying to fill the seat left by departing President Juan Manuel Santos, who was awarded the 2016 Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts to end the long-running civil war between his government and guerillas from FARC, or the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia.

Under the deal, the rebels agreed to lay down their arms, exit the jungle and pursue their aims via politics rather than guerrilla warfare.

The frontrunners in the election to replace Santos couldn’t differ more on the peace deal. Left-wing Petro supports the deal and blames former President Alvaro Uribe for the turmoil wrought by FARC, while conservative Duque has taken tough stances against FARC and openly opposes the deal.

Duque, 41, of Uribe’s Democratic Center Party, served as a senator for four years and as an adviser to the Finance Ministry and the Inter-American Development Bank. He also is a professor and writer who co-authored the book, “The Orange Economy.”

“We have done a campaign of solutions and not aggression, positive energy and joy,” Duque said. “Everything humanly possible that you can do in a campaign to win. We ask the Colombian people to give us the victory.”

Petro, 58, is a former guerilla and an economist who founded the Progressive Movement ahead of his run for mayor of Bogotá, a seat he won in 2011. Formerly a member of M-19, another guerilla group that became a political party, Petro has served three terms as a congressman and one as a senator.

Former President Uribe said he voted for Duque “because they are a guarantee of growth and social inclusion … that Colombia may not fall in the destructive socialism. I have voted with my soul wishing that the sun will shine on a new born democracy of our sister Venezuela.”

Though there have been isolated incidents of violence related to the election, they have been minimal, likely owing to the dismantling of FARC and the Defense Ministry deploying 240,000 troops to ensure safety during the election process.

More than 36 million Colombians are eligible to vote in the election.</s>BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) - The Latest on Colombia's presidential election (all times local):

Polls have opened for Colombia's presidential election, where voters are choosing between a young conservative lawmaker and a former leftist guerrilla as the nation implements a historic peace accord.

FILE - In this June 10, 2018 file photo, a girl holds a poster of former President Alvaro Uribe, left, and Ivan Duque, current presidential candidate with the Democratic Center party, during a campaign rally in Armenia, Colombia. Duque, a former senator and Uribe's protege, will face Gustavo Petro, a former leftist rebel and ex-Bogota mayor, in a run-off election on Sunday. (AP Photo/Fernando Vergara, FILE)

Colombians began gathering outside polling centers early Sunday to cast their ballots in a tense runoff between Ivan Duque and Gustavo Petro.

The vote comes at a crucial moment: A still-fragile peace deal with leftist rebels is being implementing and coca production is soaring.

The two candidates have presented starkly different views on Colombia's economic model and whether changes should be made to the peace accord.</s>BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) — The Latest on Colombia's presidential election (all times local):

Polls have opened for Colombia's presidential election, where voters are choosing between a young conservative lawmaker and a former leftist guerrilla as the nation implements a historic peace accord.

Colombians began gathering outside polling centers early Sunday to cast their ballots in a tense runoff between Ivan Duque and Gustavo Petro.

The vote comes at a crucial moment: A still-fragile peace deal with leftist rebels is being implementing and coca production is soaring.

The two candidates have presented starkly different views on Colombia's economic model and whether changes should be made to the peace accord.</s>The Colombian government and the ELN guerrilla group ended their fifth round of peace talks in Havana on Friday without reaching an agreement for a bilateral ceasefire, but vowed to continue their dialogue.

"The delegations have moved closer to a new ceasefire and we express our hope for a new and better truce, which we will work toward on the sixth cycle" that begins June 25, the two parties said in a joint statement.

The round of talks ended as Colombia prepares to go to the polls for the second round of its presidential election on Sunday.

The ELN (National Liberation Army) has announced a temporary unilateral ceasefire from Friday to Tuesday.

Conservative candidate Ivan Duque won the first round at the end of May and is favored to prevail over leftist Gustavo Petro.

He has promised if elected to renegotiate, without tearing up, a historic pact signed in 2016 between Colombia and the FARC that he considers too lenient because it offered amnesty to the former rebels if they admitted their crimes.

Duque has also expressed reservations toward the negotiations in Havana between the administration of outgoing president Juan Manuel Santos, represented by negotiator Gustavo Bell, and the ELN, represented by their leader Pablo Beltran.

More than 260,000 people have been killed, 83,000 remain missing and 7.4 million have been displaced in 50 years of conflict between the government and guerrilla movements.

The ELN, the last guerrilla group active in the country with around 1,500 fighters, previously announced a ceasefire during the first round of the presidential election.</s>Conservative Ivan Duque has won Colombia's presidential election, the first since a landmark peace deal that brought an end to more than 50 years of conflict.

With nearly all the votes counted, Duque secured 54 percent on Sunday, comfortably ahead of his leftist rival Gustavo Petro, at 42 percent.

About four percent of the voters submitted spoiled ballots, according to electoral officials.

In the capital, Bogota, enthusiastic Duque supporters honked car horns even before final results were announced.

Polls opened at 13:00 GMT and closed at 21:00 GMT after a day of peaceful voting.

In May's first round, Duque came first with nearly 40 percent of the vote, while Petro received 25 percent.

The second round of voting was seen by some as a referendum on the controversial peace deal with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) in 2016.

Duque, 41, vowed to overhaul the pact while Petro, a 58-year-old one-time rebel with the now defunct M-19, supported the fragile peace process.

He also warned that leftist rule could turn traditionally conservative Colombia - Latin America's fourth-biggest economy - into a new Venezuela, the crisis-hit neighbouring country led by socialist Nicolas Maduro.

He is supported by former President Alvaro Uribe, one of the peace accord's fiercest critics for its perceived soft judicial treatment of "FARC terrorists".

For his part, Petro - a former Bogota mayor - pledged to take on political elites, redistribute land to the poor and gradually eliminate the need for oil and coal in

Duque will succeed President Juan Manuel Santos, whose efforts to end the war with the FARC which killed 220,000 people and displaced nearly seven million brought him the Nobel Peace Prize.

Duque's victory means he will be Colombia's youngest president since 1872. His swearing-in ceremony will take place in August.</s>A former guerrilla fighter will compete against a conservative protege of a powerful ex-president for Colombia's top office on Sunday, as the country holds a crucial presidential election. Gustavo Petro and Ivan Duque are at opposite ends of the ideological spectrum and have different views on almost every major issue facing the country. Here are the candidates' bios:

Duque held a job in Washington at the Inter-American Development Bank, where he was in charge of cultural affairs. But that changed in 2013, when former President Alvaro Uribe asked him to run for Colombia's senate on behalf of his conservative party, the Democratic Center. After making a name for himself in Colombian politics, the 41-year-old lawyer clinched his party's presidential nomination.

Duque is running on a pro-business platform that includes promises to reduce corporate taxes and create incentives for oil and mining companies to invest in Colombia. He's also promised to make changes to the 2016 peace deal with the FARC, including a legal reform that would bar guerrilla leaders who have committed war crimes from participating in politics until they provide reparation to victims. He has also proposed tackling Colombia's growing cocaine production by restoring the aerial fumigation of coca crops, a move backed by the U.S. government.

Critics of Duque fear that his presidency would be heavily influenced by his mentor, Uribe. The ex-president is one of Colombia's most popular politicians and is known for having delivered hard blows to the FARC rebels that forced them to negotiate a peace deal. But Uribe's two terms in office were also marred by human rights abuses and efforts to subdue the independence of Colombia's congress and its courts. Duque has said that while he may ask Uribe for advice, he will be making decisions on his own.

In his youth, Petro was a member of an urban guerrilla group known as the M-19, and spent a couple years in jail on weapons possession charges. The group made peace with Colombia's government in 1990, and since then Petro has been elected to congress several times and also served as mayor of Bogota.

As a senator, Petro became famous for leading successful investigations into politicians with ties to right-wing paramilitaries. He is now proposing to promote agriculture by purchasing unproductive plots of land and redistributing them to the landless. He's also promised to increase corporate taxes. Petro has said he will not make any changes to the peace deal.

Throughout the campaign Petro has been hammered with criticism over his support for Venezuela's socialist government. He hosted Hugo Chavez on a 1990s tour of Colombia, and called him "a great leader" after his death. He also backed a special election held last year by President Nicolas Maduro that critics described as an illegal effort to supplant the opposition-dominated National Assembly.

Petro's critics fear that if he wins the election he will turn Colombia into "another Venezuela." The leftist candidate distanced himself from Venezuela's government during the final months of the campaign and called Maduro a "dictator."</s>Leaders from throughout the Americas have congratulated Colombia’s president-elect, Ivan Duque, for his victory in Sunday’s elections.

One of the first to call Duque was Chilean President Sebastian Piñera, who said on Twitter that “I am certain we will work shoulder to shoulder for liberty, justice and the progress of the peoples of Chile and Colombia.”

The president of Mexico, Enrique Peña, “congratulates Ivan Duque with his election in an exemplary voting round.”

The Mexican head of state vowed that “with the new government of Colombia, Mexico will continue to deepen its strategic relations, economic exchanges and development cooperation.”

The United States government and several lawmakers sent their regards to Colombia.

The United States congratulates Ivan Duque on his election as the next President of Colombia. We salute Colombia’s strong democracy, and reaffirm our admiration for its people and institutions. The United States looks forward to deepening our vibrant partnership based on our shared democratic values… We will work with President-elect Duque to support Colombia’s efforts to combat drug trafficking, strengthen security, protect human rights, and secure the just and lasting peace its people deserve.

Republican Senator Marco Rubio from Florida, a close ally of Duque, congratulated the president elect and celebrated “a historic day for Colombia as they democratically elected a woman, Marta Lucia Ramirez, as Vice President of the nation.”

House Representative James McGovern of the Democratic Party wished Duque “every success in bringing peace & prosperity to all Colombians, and in implementing fully the peace accords that ended over a half-century of internal conflict.”

Canada’s Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland joined the neighbors to the south and also stressed the accomplishment of Ramirez, “the first woman Vice President of the country.”

Argentine leader Mauricio Macri said he hoped “we can work together to continue strengthening relations between Colombia and Argentina.”

Martin Vizcarra of Peru said he hoped “to develop broad cooperation between our governments to continue strengthening the strong friendship between our peoples.”

Bolivia’s Evo Morales also congratulated Duque and said his country “ratifies bonds of joint fraternity and solidarity with the brotherly people of Colombia.”

The leader of neighboring Venezuela remained initially quiet about the election. Duque has supported like-minded Venezuelan dynasties that oppose President Nicolas Maduro’s authoritarian “Socialism of the 21st Century.”

According to migration authorities, more than a million Venezuelans have fled to Colombia over the past 15 months to escape an almost absolute collapse of Venezuela’s economy and state system.

Duque will replace outgoing President Juan Manuel Santos on August 7. The region’s response to the unfolding crisis in Venezuela will determine to what extent a possible collapse of Venezuela happens in the face of Colombia’s novice president.

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Iván Duque wins the second round presidential election to become the new President of Colombia.