BOGOTA, Colombia – The Latest on Colombia's presidential election (all times local):
4 p.m.
Polls in Colombia have closed in a first round of voting for president that drew millions of people to the ballot box.
Voters now await the results in a polarizing contest that pit candidates for and against the nation's peace process against one another.
The race is the first in Colombia's recent history in which candidates rallied voters on issues like the economy instead of how to defeat leftist rebels.
Rebels with the former Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia signed a contentious peace accord with the government in 2016.
Front-runner conservative Ivan Duque is pledging to make "corrections" to aspects of the accord including to amnesty terms for former guerrillas.
He would need more than 50 percent of the vote to avoid a run-off election in June.
___
1: 20 p.m.
For decades, Colombians voted with an eye on the bloody conflict with leftist rebels that dominated their country and politics.
But on Sunday they were casting their ballots in the first presidential election since the signing of a peace accord with the nation's biggest rebel group to end the conflict and were weighing issues like corruption, inequality, crime and relations with their crisis-plagued neighbor Venezuela.
The two leading candidates have presented dramatically different visions for both Colombia's economic model and the future of its divisive peace process in a polarizing campaign driven by a wave of anti-establishment sentiment.
Leading the polls is conservative former senator Ivan Duque, the protege of former President Alvaro Uribe, the chief critic of the peace deal, but surveys suggest he is unlikely to get the more than 50 percent of votes required to avoid a June runoff. He's being chased by Gustavo Petro, a former guerrilla and ex-Bogota mayor, whose rise has triggered business concerns he would push Colombia toward the left and rattle markets.