A FORMER Marxist guerrilla army turned mainstream political party has swept to power in elections in El Salvador, completing central America’s leftward drift.
The result marks the first time the left-wing Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN) has won a presidential vote since a 1992 peace accord brought to an end 12 years of civil war that cost 75,000 lives.
The result removes central America’s last openly right-wing government and Washington’s most trusted ally in the region.
With 99.4 per cent of the vote counted, Mauricio Funes, FMLN candidate and a former television journalist, won the election with 51.3 per cent.
Rodrigo Ávila, candidate from the incumbent conservative Arena party and Mr Funes’s only rival, had 48.7 per cent of the vote.
Throughout an aggressive campaign, Mr Ávila had told Salvadoreans that a vote for Mr Funes would be a vote for Hugo Chávez.
But most experts see Mr Funes as a moderate. He has gone to great lengths to keep the US on his side, even using US president Barack Obama’s “yes we can” campaign slogan. Last week he said he expected to maintain “a relation of understanding and mutual respect” with the US.
Mr Funes takes office without a legislative majority. – (Financial Times service)