Chamber:
	Senado de la República
Dates of elections / renewal (from/to):
	10 March 2002
Purpose of elections:
	Elections were held for all seats in the Senate on the normal expiry of the members' term of office
Background and outcome of elections:
	Voters went to the polls on 10 March 2002 to elect all members the House of Representatives and of the Senate. The election was held amid an escalating war and threats of violence, just two weeks after President Andrés Pastrana put an end to peace talks with and launched air strikes against the rebels of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). The 17,000-strong Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) had urged Colombians not to vote, indicating that none of the candidates for the House of Representatives or Senate would legislate in favour of the people and that those of them who would seek to would be assassinated. About 150,000 troops and police, the biggest force ever deployed, provided security and were on high alert as Colombians voted. Voting was generally peaceful across the nation. However, in one of the rare cases of election-related violence, hours before polls opened, soldiers killed eight leftist rebels in two separate skirmishes, and guerrilla fighters burned voting material in some isolated towns and blew up one communications tower in southern Colombia. Authorities had to cancel voting in 15 of the nation's 1,097 municipalities, mainly because rebels had seized and burned the ballots, Interior Minister Armando Estrada said. Over 55% registered voters abstained and more than one million invalid ballots were cast. According to official final results from the National Registrar's Office, the Liberal Party remained the largest force in the Congress, with 54 of 166 seats in the House of Representatives, and 35 of 102 seats in the Senate. The Conservative Party won 21 seats in the House of Representatives and 26 in the Senate. The independents scored a real upset, polling almost without exception the highest votes in the different regions of the country and nationwide. The head of the Conservative Party, Mr. Carlos Holguin, resigned after the results were published in view of the conservatives' dismal showing. The new Congress held its first sitting in August 2002 and elected Mr. William Vélez Mesa as the Speaker of the House of Representatives and Mr. Luis Alfredo Ramos Botero President of the Senate.

STATISTICS

Round no 1 (10 March 2002): Elections results
Number of registered electors	24 000 636
Voters	10 188 929 (42 %)
Blank or invalid ballot papers	1 896 077
Valid votes	8 292 852

Round no 1: Distribution of seats
Political Group	Total
Liberal Party (PL)	50
Social Conservative Party (PSC)	30
Independents	10
Other parties	12

Distribution of seats according to sex:
Men:	93
Women:	9
Percent of women:	8.82