Colombia's presidential race engulfed by scandal

Accusations of bribes from drug traffickers, spying and email hacking have turned Colombia's presidential election into an ugly slugfest that has further polarized a country trying to emerge from its violent past.
The mudslinging has distracted attention from talks with the country's main rebel group to end the country's half-century internal conflict, which had been expected to be a key issue going into Sunday's election.
Much of the blame for the dirty campaigning falls on two former allies whose public feuding has divided Colombia the past four years: President Juan Manuel Santos and his still-powerful predecessor, Alvaro Uribe.
Despite presiding over what may be South America's best-performing economy, Santos is struggling amid relentless attacks by Uribe and his hand-picked heir, former finance chief Oscar Ivan Zuluaga. Polls say the two are running neck and neck, well ahead of three other candidates but with neither likely to garner the 50 per cent needed to avoid a runoff.

Zuluaga's conservative Democratic Center movement has lambasted Santos for what it calls his softness in 18-month-old negotiations with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, known as the FARC. Zuluaga has threatened to end the talks in Cuba if he is elected, saying he will demand the rebels prove their commitment to peace by declaring a permanent cease-fire within a week.
But those policy differences have taken a backseat to endless bickering and near-daily bombshells that have Colombians shaking their heads in disgust.

It began with media reports that Santos' campaign manager, JJ Rendon, received USD 12 million from the nation's biggest drug traffickers to negotiate their surrender. The information was based on three-year-old, leaked testimony to Colombian prosecutors from a drug cartel boss jailed in the US.

Rendon, a Venezuelan native, quickly resigned after acknowledging that he interceded in the case, although he denied taking any money.
Two days later, authorities arrested a computer expert who worked for Zuluaga's campaign, accusing him of hacking into the emails of FARC negotiators and even Santos. Zuluaga denounced the arrest as a ploy to derail his candidacy.
Uribe, without presenting any evidence, then accused Rendon of funneling USD 2 million from the alleged drug-dealer payments to Santos' 2010 campaign.