Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos faces a tough re-election battle after finishing second in first-round elections behind rival Oscar Zuluaga, a fierce critic of peace talks with Marxist rebels.
Zuluaga, a former finance minister, finished first in Sunday's polls with 29.3 per cent of the vote compared to 25.7 per cent for Santos, forcing a June 15 election because neither got a majority.
It was a reversal of fortune for Santos, who had led opinion polls in recent months, only to see his lead evaporate in the final stretch of a campaign marked by mudslinging between the former allies.
After the results were published, Santos warned that the election was a referendum on his centre-right government's 18-month negotiations with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC).
The runoff would be a choice "between those who want an end to the war and those who prefer a war without end," Santos told supporters, who chanted "peace! peace!"
Miguel Garcia, director of the Democracy Observatory at the University of the Andes, said the result was not "completely negative" for Santos.
"But it shows a divided country in which Zuluaga capitalised on the distrust that millions have toward the FARC," he said.
Zuluaga, who is backed by popular and conservative former president Alvaro Uribe, vowed again on Monday to suspend the peace talks and impose tough conditions on the FARC before negotiating.
"I am a friend of peace and I am willing to search for a negotiated peace, but if the FARC want a negotiated peace there must be conditions," he said, adding that the rebels would have to drop their weapons and accept six-year prison terms for their crimes.
The peace process, hosted by Cuba, seeks to end a conflict that has killed more than 220,000 people and displaced more than five million since it erupted in 1964.
The talks have so far led to agreements on rural reform, the participation of former guerillas in politics and the battle against drug trafficking.
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