Colombia's leftist opposition won a landslide victory the in Bogota mayor's race, but candidates loyal to President Alvaro Uribe cruised to victory in the heartland, where his hardline security policies are widely popular.

The leftists won only one other governor's race in elections Sunday across the Andean nation's 32 electoral districts. Even in the capital, a pro-Uribe coalition will dominate the city council.

Even so, Samuel Moreno's victory is a major boost for the Alternative Democratic Pole because Bogota's mayor — who has legal status equal to that of a governor — is considered the most important public official after the president and it came in the face of a clear Uribe tilt against Moreno.

However, the opposition's influence on politics outside the cosmopolitan capital of 8 million remains limited ahead of the 2010 presidential race.

Antonio Navarro Wolf, a former guerrilla, was the only other major Pole candidate to be elected, as governor of the southern state of Narino.

The leftist party "made important advances, but it remains weak in many parts of the country," said Alejo Vargas, a political science professor at Bogota's National University. "For it to win in 2010, a lot needs to happen."

In a nationally televised speech on the eve of elections, Uribe warned voters to reject candidates who buy votes and are supported by rebels. The statements were widely interpreted as aimed at Moreno, who received favorable coverage on a pro-rebel Web site and who said in a televised debate said he'd buy votes if his opponent did — a statement he later retracted.

Moreno told supporters Sunday night that his five-year-old leftist coalition had consolidated itself as Colombia's main opposition, saying, "Surely we will win in 2010."

Moreno, the grandson of a former dictator, topped former Mayor Enrique Penalosa by a 16 percentage points.

The Pole finished second in the 2006 presidential election when Carlos Gaviria won 22 percent of the vote, a record for the left.