El Salvador

Left-winger tipped to win Salvador's presidency

Article published on the 2009-03-15 Latest update 2009-03-15 16:00 TU

Funes's supporters at a rally
(Photo: Reuters)

Polling opened Sunday morning in El Salvador's presidential election, which is expected to end 20 years of rule by the right-wing Arena party. The Vice-President's job is also up for grabs, but not control of parliament, in which no party has an outright majority.

Former TV journalist Mauricio Funes is ahead in the opinion polls. He is the candidate of the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front (FMLN), which fought a guerrilla war against the US-backed government of Jose Napoleon Duarte.

The election campaign has been "tense and polarised" according to Mauricio Torres who is reporting from El Salvador for RFI's Spanish-language service.  

Funes's rival, Rodrigo Avila of the right-wing National Republican Alliance (Arena), has claimed that the FMLN plans to bring in a government similar to that of Hugo Chavez in Venezuela.

Arena has also invoked memories of the war and last week in the US 46 Republican lawmakers wrote to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to say that an FMLN victory could mean a threat to US national interests.

The State Department's top diplomat Tom Shannon on Friday said that Washington will work with whichever candidate is elected, while Funes insists that the country will remain a US ally if he wins.

After 20 years in power, Arena is looking "jaded", says UK-based analyst Colin Harding.

"They’ve managed more or less to keep the peace, which is an achievement in El Salvador," he told RFI. "It’s probably one of the most violent countries in the world, a very high crime rate, very high murder rate."

The violence has spilt over into the election campaign, with two FMLN supporters seriously injured and damage to vehicles in a motorcade supporting Avila on the last day.

The FMLN's main asset is the promise of change, says Harding.

"The political system is more stable than it used to be, but El Salvador has huge social and economic problems, a lot of extreme poverty, an economy very dependent on remittances from the millions of Salvadoreans who live in the United States."