Colombia: Landslide for Lleras

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It was possibly the last big try for power by Colombia's aging (66) ex-Dictator Gustavo Rojas Pinilla. On the eve of last week's presidential elections, Rojas drafted a puppet candidate, scheduled a whirlwind campaign of the countryside, and gave his man the same big buildup that had helped Rojas' party win 18% of the vote in the congressional elections last March. In the end, it wasn't enough. For the third time, the country's eight-year-old National Front coalition won the presidency. The winner by a better than two-to-one margin: Carlos Lleras Restrepo, 58, economist, educator and longtime leader of Colombia's Liberal Party (TIME, April 1).

Lleras Restrepo, who will take office Aug. 7, faces some enormous problems. Under his do-nothing predecessor, Conservative Guillermo Leon Valencia, Colombia's coffee-based economy has gone steadily downhill, the National Front itself splintered, and Rojas' opposition group in Congress effectively blocked all government legislation. By pushing a "bloodless revolution" of economic and social reforms, Lleras Restrepo hopes to lure some of the opposition to his side and win the two-thirds majority he needs to legislate. Otherwise, he seems prepared to extend the state of siege that Valencia declared last May, and run his country by decree if necessary.