By Michael Easterbrook
Associated Press Writer
Friday, Oct. 6, 2000; 5:55 a.m. EDT

BOGOTA, Colombia –– After mayoral candidate Hector Bastides ignored a guerrilla commander's phone call inviting him to a meeting last month, four gunmen arrived at his home and hauled him into the mountains.

Taken to a camp of the leftist National Liberation Army, or ELN, Bastides was grilled about his political agenda by a rebel chief who identified himself as Alex.

Bastides was freed five days later, along with seven other local politicians who were also interrogated. A 30-year-old lawyer and university professor, he remains undeterred in his quest to be mayor of Samaniego, near the border with Ecuador.

As Colombia prepares for provincial and municipal elections on Oct. 29, Bastides is one of hundreds of candidates being pressured by armed groups battling for control of the strife-torn South American country.

Seeking to strengthen their grip on large swaths of the countryside, guerrillas and rival right-wing paramilitary bands are resorting to death threats, kidnappings, and even assassinations to influence the outcome of the elections – which come at a critical juncture for Colombia.

The voting – for town counselors, mayors, and governors – is seen as a test of Colombia's embattled democracy and an opportunity to attack the corruption and poverty that helps justify the rebel cause.

"The issues that these politicians will be dealing with will have a profound effect on the future of our country," says political science professor Fernando Giraldo of Bogota's Javeriana University.

Meanwhile, the number of candidates murdered and abducted climbs by the week. Twenty mayoral aspirants have been assassinated this year and about a hundred kidnapped, according to Gilberto Toro, director of the Colombian Federation of Municipalities.

Armed groups are intimidating candidates in more than half of the country's 1,089 municipalities, he added. Toro's group has asked for the elections to be suspended in several municipalities, but the government has refused to do so.

The government has promised that voting will proceed in every town, with a massive security operation to contain any violence.

The vote will go forth "in order and peace," President Andres Pastrana of the Conservative Party said on TV last week.

Polling will also occur, the government says, in an area under rebel rule.

As a concession to start peace talks with the country's biggest rebel group, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, the government two years ago pulled its troops from a five-township zone the FARC now openly controls. About 90,000 people live in the area, about twice the size of New Jersey.

While the FARC says it will not openly support any candidates, Giraldo believes they will be working behind the scenes in towns around the country.

"They believe that if they have control over the municipalities, they'll have more influence with the central government and more power at the negotiating table," he said.

When not demanding political allegiance, guerrillas and paramilitary groups are reportedly squeezing promises from candidates to donate money to their insurgencies, fix roads or improve living conditions for the poor.

A group of mayors made a plea in Washington last week for international election observers. However there are no plans for any large-scale monitoring.

Bastides said when he was abducted on Sept. 23 that Alex demanded to know the candidates' plans if elected and their thoughts on growing U.S. ties to the Colombian military – a policy the rebels strongly oppose.

"I told them that I wanted to clean up city hall and that I wanted to convince coca growers in the area to switch crops," said Bastides. Colombia's guerrillas oppose U.S.-backed efforts to forcibly eradicate the peasants' cocaine-producing crops. "I still have some fear. But I am not quitting the race."