BOGOTA, Marchr 10: Thousands of troops and police were on high alert on Sunday as Colombians voted in congressional elections against the backdrop of fresh violence that followed the collapse of peace talks last month.

Hours before polls opened at 8 am, soldiers killed eight leftist rebels in two separate skirmishes, and guerrilla fighters burned voting material in some isolated towns and blew up one communications tower in southern Colombia, the military said.

Despite the violence in a country gripped by a 38-year-old war, most of the 60,000 polling stations across this nation of Andean mountains and thick jungles opened without incident to allow 24 million Colombians to cast ballots for 268 seats in the lower house and Senate, officials said.

Polls show the opposition Liberal Party is expected to hold on to its majority in both houses, and results of the elections are not expected to change government policies.

Frequent corruption scandals have turned Congress — known for its political acquiescence to the country’s powerful president — into one of the least popular institutions in this nation.

President Andres Pastrana cast his ballot in an open-air ceremony in the colonial heart of Bogota and urged voters to turn out in large numbers as a gesture of rejecting violence.

Pastrana on Feb. 20 broke off 3-year-old peace talks with the leftist Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia — known by its Spanish acronym FARC — after rebels hijacked a commercial airliner and kidnapped one senator on board. Colombia’s war has killed 40,000 people in the last decade.

“Today Colombians are going to defeat terrorism by voting. Let us prove to the violent and to the intolerant that we want to strengthen our democracy. Let us tell the world we want peace,” Pastrana told a crowd.

The run-up to the elections, overshadowed by voters’ apathy toward Congress, has been tainted by the threat of violence from FARC rebels and its right-wing paramilitary enemies.

A more significant vote will take place on May 26 — when Colombians pick a president to succeed Pastrana, who is constitutionally barred from seeking reelection. Polls show independent anti-rebel candidate Alvaro Uribe with a big lead.

REBELS CALL FOR BOYCOTT: Under “Plan Democracy,” the government is deploying 110,000 police and troops in a country the size of Spain, Portugal and France combined. To prevent violence, authorities banned the sale of alcohol and the carrying of arms during the weekend.