Former rebel chief wins presidency
SAN SALVADOR, El Salvador – El Salvador’s electoral court on Thursday declared leftist candidate Salvador Sanchez Ceren the winner of the tight presidential election, making him the first former rebel commander to win the presidency of a nation where 76,000 died in a civil war.
With all the votes counted, the electoral court announced on its website that Sanchez Ceren, candidate of the ruling Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front, the FMLN, got 50.1 percent of the votes. Norman Quijano, of the conservative Nationalist Republican Alliance party, known as ARENA, got 49.9 percent.
Sanchez Ceren won by less than 7,000 votes, and Quijano’s party vowed to challenge the results unless authorities agree to a vote-by-vote recount.
Outgoing President Mauricio Funes was was sympathetic to the FMLN rebels during the 1980-1992 civil war.
Associated Press
