By Danny Burridge
On June 1, 2009, Mauricio Funes of the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front (FMLN) was sworn in as the first leftist president of El Salvador. Funes rode a wave of popular will for change after 20 years of devastating neoliberal policies implemented by successive Nationalist Republican Alliance (ARENA) governments. His victorious candidacy was also helped along by its novelty: Funes is a widely respected former journalist and a progressive political outsider.
Funes overcame both a ruthless smear campaign engineered by the right wing and the institutionalized fraud endemic to the Salvadoran elections that favor ARENA. Massive voter turnout prevailed over both obstacles, handing him a slight majority at the ballot box – though recent opinion polls show he enjoys the support of around 80 percent of the public.
In his inauguration speech, Funes promised the social and economic reconstruction of El Salvador under a “government of national unity.” He twice invoked the legacy of the martyred bishop Óscar Romero, assuring that the only sector privileged by his government would be the poor. Funes promised to fight corruption and tax evasion, to streamline government institutions, and to maintain an independent foreign policy. In fact, one of his first acts as president was to re-establish diplomatic and commercial relations with Cuba, leaving the United States as the only country in the hemisphere with out formal ties to Havana.
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