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By: AFP writers
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Some 29.8 million Colombians are registered to choose from 2,539 candidates and elect all 102 senators and 166 representatives.
Five members will also be elected to the regional Andean Parliament, while the Conservative and Green parties are in the midst of internal consultations to select their presidential candidates.
Uribe supporters are expected to hold on to their majority in Congress. The popular president had sought a third term in office, but Colombia's Constitutional Court last month blocked his attempts, ruling unconstitutional a law calling for a referendum on the issue.
Uribe, who has near 70-percent approval ratings and is Washington's closest ally in South America, said he would honor the ruling, which cannot be appealed.
It opens the way for former defense minister Juan Manuel Santos, an Uribe supporter, to run in Colombia's May 30 presidential election. A second round is scheduled for June 20.
Surveys show Santos, 58, leading a crowded field of presidential hopefuls. He is followed in the polls by former Medellin mayor Sergio Fajardo, who needs his Citizens' Movement for Colombia to clinch at least one congressional seat in order to be eligible to run.
During the legislative elections, "the opposition is not expected to make gains, although it could lose some of their seats," Rosario University professor Rafael Guarin told AFP.
There are not yet any "elements suggesting a major surprise that would alter Colombia's political map," analyst Fernando Cano agreed.
Yet the results will have a decisive influence on the presidential race.
"Those who take the majority will have more leeway in Congress and will give the next president more or less governing power," said Rodrigo Losada of Javeriana University.
Uribe's absence from the presidential race has left his supporters without a clear leader, and half a dozen candidates from the ruling coalition parties are fighting to replace him.
The president managed to keep his support at over 60 percent throughout his eight years in office thanks to a tough crackdown on Marxist rebels, who get their funding from drug trafficking, and by ushering one of the country's best economic performances in 30 years by attracting more foreign investment.
Conservative Party leader Fernando Araujo estimated his party would receive two million votes during the weekend elections. Uribe's former ambassador to Britain, Noemi Sanin, and ex-agriculture minister Andres Felipe Arias are vying to receive the conservative nod for the elections.
Despite having served under Uribe, Sanin has taken put some distance from the president, especially after she objected to his bid to stand for a third term.
Arias, meanwhile, is considered a staunch Uribe supporter, but he has been weakened by a corruption scandal over farm subsidies.
Guarin said that if Sanin is anointed as the Conservative presidential candidate, the ruling coalition would be split, possibly setting the stage for a runoff election between her and Santos.
"Uribe's absence has opened a wide range of coalitions that depend not so much on the president's leadership but on the possibilities each party has for the presidency in May," he added.
This electoral campaign was the least violent in years, although marred by the kidnapping and subsequent killing of Caqueta department governor Luis Francisco Cuellar by the FARC Marxist rebels in December.
Some 210 political kidnappings took place during the 2002 elections, and seven others in 2006.
Latin America's oldest and largest insurgency, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia guerrillas have been battling the Colombian government for four decades.
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