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Fresh face lifts ex-guerrillas in Salvador election
Fri Mar 13, 2009 1:36pm EDT
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By Catherine Bremer
SAN SALVADOR (Reuters) - El Salvador's former Marxist rebels have their best odds yet of ousting a right-wing party in power since the end of a 1980s civil war when the country votes on Sunday in a charged presidential election.
Leftist Mauricio Funes, a dapper former TV journalist, is leading polls for the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front as he promises to soften the blow of the world economic crisis on El Salvador's poor yet get on well with ex-foe Washington.
Rodrigo Avila, a former national police chief running for the long-ruling Nationalist Republican Alliance, ARENA, is close behind in the latest polls.
Many Salvadorans want a break from two decades of right-wing rule, but others are squeamish at the thought of putting the economy in the hands of leaders schooled in Cold War-era Marxism just as the economic crisis bites.
"I never voted for the FMLN before, but with Mauricio it's different," said Martha Martinez, 50, a prim housewife whose flowery satin blouse stood out from the red T-shirts of hardline FMLN voters at a rally in the capital.
Memories of the 1980-92 conflict which killed 75,000 people still hang over El Salvador and the election race has been loaded with barbs by the rival parties born out of former enemy camps.
Avila, who once acknowledged shooting leftist fighters as a soldier during the war, has called the FMLN "communists" and "terrorists" and Funes, who reported on but never fought in the conflict, has accused ARENA of using smear tactics.
Economic gloom is playing a part too, as El Salvador stings from a recession in the United States, the main buyer of its factory goods and the source of some $3.5 billion a year sent home by a huge Salvadoran diaspora there.
"If there was a third party I'd vote for it. Things are terrible economically and with ARENA they will stay the same," said Jose Rodriguez, 37, who says business has dwindled at the market stall where he repairs and sells old televisions.
"But I can't vote for the FMLN. I saw what they were like in the war and I don't know if they've changed," he said. "With them, things could get three times worse."
EMOTIONALLY CHARGED
Funes, 49, who won fans presenting TV news programs critical of the government, calls himself a center-leftist closer to the moderate left of Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva than the more radical governments of Nicaragua and Venezuela.
He says he seeks close ties with Washington and wants to reform institutions to spread the wealth in a country where factory workers earn around $5 a day but inflation has sent some prices soaring to developed world levels.
"We are seeing the birth of a new El Salvador," Funes, who wears white rather than red shirts, told supporters. He promises to invest in farming to avoid high food imports and crack down on tax evasion by the rich.
Avila, 44, who failed as head cop to curb rampant street gang violence, says his party is best placed to weather an expected shrinking economy this year. "We have the capacity to deal with the crisis," he said this week. Continued...
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