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Left-wing party wins El Salvador' presidential election
(Xinhua)
Updated: 2009-03-16 14:10

SAN SALVADOR  -- Left-wing opposition candidate Mauricio Funes won El Salvador's presidential election on Sunday, figures released by the country's election commission showed.


Presidential candidate Mauricio Funes of the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front (FMLN) gives a news conference with his wife Vanda Pignato in which he claimed victory in the presidential election in San Salvador March 15, 2009. [Agencies] 

Funes of the Farabundo Marti Front for the National Liberation Party (FMLN) garnered 51.27 percent of the vote against 48.73 percent for Rodrigo Avila of the ruling conservative ARENA party, according to the figures.

Funes, born in 1959 and one of the most influential media workers in El Salvador, has promised to push reform in education, health and to fight poverty in the country.

As one of the two major political parties in El Salvador, the FMLN participated in the country's presidential elections in 1994, 1999 and 2004.

The FMLN, a former guerrilla organization, became a legal political party in 1992.

More than 4.22 million people registered for Sunday's election, accounting for some 63 percent of the country's population.

Four candidates were competing for the presidency, with Avila and  Funes seen as the two main contenders.