Bogota, Colombia ? When Maria Cristina Mejia voted in presidential elections four years ago, she selected a candidate who pledged to negotiate peace with a long-running leftist insurgency.

Now, with President Andres Pastrana’s peace effort in tatters, the 53-year-old small-business owner plans to vote today for a candidate Alvaro Uribe who vows to get tough on the rebels and seek more U.S. military aid. And so will millions of other Colombians.

“I’ll vote for him, so he takes care of this problem once and for all,” Mejia said.

From gritty barrios to posh neighborhoods, Colombians are responding to Uribe’s call for a “firm hand,” making the Harvard-educated former governor the wide favorite in today’s pivotal elections over his main challenger, Horacio Serpa, who was interior minister for a former president linked to drug traffickers.

For 38 years, Colombia’s war has ground on, killing 3,500 people per year, stifling economic growth and turning the lush, lawless landscape into the world’s No. 1 producer of cocaine and a breeding ground for kidnapping and extortion. Now, even the cities are feeling the war, which had previously been fought in the countryside.

Battles were fought last week between government security forces and rebels in the streets of Medellin, the country’s second-largest city. In April, rebels posing as government troops waltzed into the provincial parliament in Cali, the third-largest city, and kidnapped a dozen legislators.

One presidential candidate, Ingrid Betancourt, is being held hostage by the rebels after being kidnapped at a roadblock in February.