Colom­bians milled in­to vot­ing sta­tions on Sun­day in the first round of the South Amer­i­can na­tion’s pres­i­den­tial elec­tion, choos­ing be­tween can­di­dates with rad­i­cal­ly di­verg­ing vi­sions for the fu­ture of peace in a coun­try haunt­ed by decades of armed con­flict.

The vote, seen as a ref­er­en­dum on out­go­ing Pres­i­dent Gus­ta­vo Petro’s poli­cies, comes 10 years af­ter Colom­bia signed an his­toric peace pact with guer­ril­las of the Rev­o­lu­tion­ary Armed Forces of Colom­bia, or FARC.

That agree­ment of­fered hope to break the na­tion’s vi­cious cy­cle of fight­ing be­tween rebel groups and the gov­ern­ment, but vi­o­lence has roared back since then, com­ing to a head in the lead-up to the pres­i­den­tial vote. Crim­i­nal groups have in­creas­ing­ly launched drone strikes, armed at­tacks have plagued the race and last June, 39-year-old politi­cian and pres­i­den­tial hope­ful Miguel Uribe Tur­bay was fa­tal­ly shot at a po­lit­i­cal ral­ly.