Colombians voted in the most peaceful election in years yesterday, apparently ready to hand President Alvaro Uribe four more years in office for curbing crime and driving leftist guerillas from the cities.

Troops patrolled the streets of the capital Bogota, high in the Andes mountains, and across the nation of 41 million people that has suffered horrifying bloodshed in the past four decades. No major attacks by FARC guerillas were reported.

Mr Uribe, a conservative US ally in a region increasingly moving to the political left, voted early in Bogota.

"I want to invite all my compatriots to vote. Democracy is a treasure and we must guard this treasure," he said.

A win for Mr Uribe would be a relief for Washington after a string of election victories by leftists in Latin America and with Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez on a mission to counter US free-market ideas with socialist reforms for the poor.

A 53-year-old lawyer and landowner, Mr Uribe has cracked down on right-wing militias and the FARC rebels who use Colombia's cocaine trade to fund an insurgency that kills thousands each year.