by Enrico Tortolano in San Salvador
MAURICIO FUNES of the leftist Farabundo Marti Front for National Liberation won the presidential election in El Salvador on Sunday – ending almost two decades of right-wing rule.
Mr Funes won more than 51 per cent of the vote compared with 48 per cent for Rodrigo Avila of the ruling ARENA party.
This followed legislative elections in January in which the FMLN won 42.6 per cent of the vote – and 35 seats – making it the largest party in parliament, although without a governing majority.
Hugo Chávez was the first foreign leader to congratulate Mr Funes on his triumph. The Venezuelan leader said Salvadorans “showed their clarity and courage, defeating the rightist campaign of lies, garbage and manipulation”.
ARENA had won every presidential election since the end of El Salvador’s brutal civil war 18 years ago in which more than 100,000 people died – most, according to the United Nations, at the hands of their own government or their allies in right-wing paramilitary death squads. The FMLN is a coalition of former rebels who fought the US-backed military government for almost two decades.
After Mr Funes’ victory was announced on Sunday night the scenes of joy in the streets of San Salvador were reminiscent of the Sandinistas arriving in Managua after overthrowing the Samosa regime in 1979. Almost half a million Salvadorans wearing FMLN red danced and sang through the calles on the way to the city’s historic Plaza Mundo.
The emotion sweeping through the country was best captured by the popular FMLN song that says “Y que venga la alegria a lavar el sufrimiento” – let the joy come and wash away the suffering.
In his victory speech the new president promised to strengthen international relations and develop a foreign policy independent of the United States.
His domestic policy is underpinned by a determination to ensure the benefits of economic growth reach the millions of Salvadorans living in extreme poverty.
