Free Republic

This week the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front, or FMLN, won the presidential election in El Salvador. The former Marxist rebels, who fought a guerilla war from 1980-1992, are the first leftist party to come to power in the country's history.

The Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front, or FMLN, made history on March 15, when its candidate Mauricio Funes captured the presidency become the first leftist party elected to El Salvador´s highest elected office, after three failed attempts since it laid down its weapons 17 years ago. The FMLN, which was defeated in three straight presidential elections since 1994, fought for power with arms during El Salvador´s 1980-92 civil war, that left some 70,000 dead. Funes captured 51.3 percent of the vote, topping his closest rival, Rodrigo Ávila, of the ruling Nationalist Republican Alliance, or Arena, party, who won 48.7 percent...

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama telephoned the next president of El Salvador on Wednesday to congratulate him on his election.

President-elect Mauricio Funes Wednesday said he will consider establishing diplomatic relations with China when he takes office on June 1. Funes, who heads the FMLN leftist rebel group-turned political party, said he would discuss San Salvador's links with Beijing with Taiwan's envoy as well as with Chinese officials in the Salvadoran capital. But he insisted the "type of relation" his incoming government will establish with Taiwan and Beijing "will be dealt with later on" in his administration. Funes said however that he is "interested in closer" trade relations with China, given its immense market of more than 1.3 billion people....

Hemisphere: El Salvador elected a leftist president in a peaceful vote Sunday that by all accounts was fair. But the odds are now against this U.S. ally remaining democratic. That could cost the U.S. in more ways than one.The narrow election of Mauricio Funes, a representative of the Marxist guerrilla FMLN party, as president of El Salvador Sunday, is a body blow to U.S. influence and the free market model in the region. Don't take it from us, take it from them: "This is the defeat of Ronald Reagan, nothing less," crowed Roberto Lovato, a Funes supporter identified as a...

SAN SALVADOR, El Salvador (AP) — A charismatic former TV journalist promised to build strong ties with President Barack Obama and promote investor confidence Monday as he took El Salvador into uncharted territory by being elected its first leftist president. Behind Mauricio Funes is a party of former Marxist guerrillas that fought to overthrow U.S.-backed governments in the 1980s and whose rise to power has raised fears of a communist regime in the war-scarred Central American country.

MIAMI, March 16 -- Mauricio Funes, a former TV newsman who was recruited to run for president, declared himself the winner of El Salvador's presidential contest Sunday night, bringing into power a leftist party built by former guerrillas and ending two decades of conservative rule. Funes, a dynamic speaker and political outsider who compares himself to President Obama and pledged to be an agent of change in the small Central American nation, was leading the polls late Sunday night with 51.2 percent of the vote and more than 90 percent of the ballots counted. Turnout was high and election day...