Jesus Pinacue, himself one of the 20,000 members of the Paez Indian community in Cauca province, is due to take up his seat in Congress on Monday.

But first 40 indigenous shamans will force him to walk six hours along a dirt track, order him to spend the night in a damp mountain pasture in near-freezing temperatures and at dawn Saturday will strip him naked and throw him into a lake.

Pinacue was sentenced to the punishment at a tribal council meeting Wednesday for supporting the "wrong" candidate in last month's presidential elections, said a Reuters photographer at the meeting.

Pinacue, who ran for the vice-presidency in 1994, publicly supported the ruling Liberal Party candidate Horacio Serpa in the runoff election on June 21, despite orders from the Indian community not to support either of the two candidates.

Serpa lost the election to the Conservative Party-backed Andres Pastrana.

Pinacue, whose good looks have brought him offers to model for French fashion houses, looked on the positive side.

"The Indian medicine-men will throw me into the lake and I will have to try and get out," Pinacue told a handful of journalists in Paniquita after his sentence was handed down.

"This will help restore my good energy and free me of evil spirits," he added.

In fact Pinacue has escaped lightly. Initially Paez governors had threatened to force Pinacue to renounce his seat in Congress and said they would string him up in a tree and whip him.