Former guerrillero tipped for presidency in El Salvador

[Judi Lynn]

Former guerrillero tipped for presidency in El Salvador
Latest update : 2014-01-31

An ex-guerrilla fighter turned presidential hopeful is the frontrunner in El Salvador’s elections on Sunday. While a left-leaning government is in power, picking a onetime insurgent as the country’s head of state would be an unprecedented event. Salvador Sanchez Ceren, the 69-year-old presidential candidate of the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front (FMLN), is on track to win 46.8% of votes, while right-wing rival Norman Quijano is polling 32.8% support, according to the latest opinion survey by the Central American Jesuit University.

“Sanchez Ceren’s advantage has grown in recent weeks. It is a result of the FMLN’s increasingly positive image among voters, but also the widespread idea that Quijano’s ARENA (Nationalist Republican Alliance) party should not return to power,” Jeannette Aguilar, the director of the university’s public opinion institute told FRANCE 24.

The small Central American country’s charismatic president Mauricio Funes, a former television journalist, is barred by the constitution from running for a consecutive term. The FMLN convinced him to run as their nominee in 2009, but Funes has never joined the party and largely maintained his independence from the political camp.

Five years later, the guerrilla-army-turned-political-party hopes to send one of its old fighters to the Casa Presidencial for the first time.Sanchez Ceren has promised to continue and even extend Funes’ popular welfare programmes, like free school supplies for the country’s neediest children and support for poor farmers. He also wants El Salvador to join the Petrocaribe oil bloc led by Venezuela’s socialist government.

More:
http://www.france24.com/en/20140131-el-salvador-fmln-guerrillero-presidential-elections-sanchez-ceren/

[sabrina 1]

1. Interesting news. I hope he wins.