El Salvador’s former rebels take presidency, urge unity

El Salvador’s Marxist guerrilla movement turned political party has claimed victory at the polls. With about 90 percent of the votes counted, preliminary official results indicate a two percent lead by the FMLN’s Mauricio Funes – who will take the presidency after a 20 year reign by the far-right ARENA party. The Untied States sought to crush the FMLN during El Salvador’s 12 year civil war, which claimed the lives of some 70,000 people. But despite his party’s revolutionary past, Funes campaigned on the need for change and reconciliation, and wants to maintain positive diplomatic relations with the U.S. Aura Bogado speaks to Joaquin Chavez, Fellow at the Department of History at NYU who is in San Salvador.

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