Former Newsman Fronting El Salvador's Leftist Group is Presidential Hopeful

A frontrunner in El Salvador’s upcoming presidential election has two Web sites, a Facebook page and the designation of “hottie,” courtesy of one political analyst.He has taken a page out of Barack Obama’s playbook and tried to draw a comparison between himself and the American president. One of his campaign ads, despite the U.S. Embassy’s protests, features images of Obama and points out that both he and Obama were attacked by conservative parties who accused them of being associated with terrorists and radicals.But for Mauricio Funes, a former journalist for CNN en Espanol, ties to radical leftists are no mere accusation. It’s a fact: He is the candidate of Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front (FMLN), a former guerrilla group and by-product of El Salvador’s Communist movement that waged years of armed struggle before gaining legal status as a political party following a bloody civil war.This Sunday Funes will face off against Rodrigo Avila, the former deputy director of the national police and the candidate of the National Republican Alliance Party (Arena), which has been in power for two decades. And while Avila has been gaining steadily in the polls, it is Funes who is provoking both inspiration and suspicion throughout the Western Hemisphere.Latin American watchers wonder just what lies ahead for El Salvador, an American ally, if Funes wins.Born in 1949 to middle class parents, Funes received earned a university degree in Letters, with a specialty in Social Communications-an upbringing and education that separate him from the impoverished farmer backgrounds of other leftist Latin American leaders, such as Hugo Chavez of Venezuela and Evo Morales of Bolivia.In 1986 he began a 21-year career as a television reporter. His only experience in politics, prior to being tapped as the FMLN presidential nominee in September 2007, was interviewing his party’s former guerrilla leader, Schafik Handal.Latin American watchers say Funes’ lack of experience is precisely what makes him such an attractive choice to the FMLN.“He is not an ideologue,” says Larry Birn, Director of the Council on Hemispheric Affairs.“He is a person who doesn’t mouth traditional political lingo.He’s a kind of a Schwarzenegger type. He’s a celebrity, and people have good feelings towards him, and most of all he carries with him very few negatives.”
By Nora Zimmett

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