A leftist party of former Marxist guerrillas had a 10 point lead in a poll published on Sunday ahead of the country's March 15 presidential election, according to Reuters. Mauricio Funes, a former TV journalist running for the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front, had 39.6 percent support in the poll in the daily Prensa Grafica, versus 29.7 percent for right-wing ruling party candidate Rodrigo Avila. Funes was not a rebel fighter in El Salvador's civil war and that appears to be boosting the FMLN's chances of winning power for the first time. The party led in congressional elections in January, winning 35 seats against 32 for the ruling National Republican Alliance, or ARENA. Sunday's poll surveyed 2,070 people across El Salvador Jan 24-27 and has a margin of error of 2.2 percentage points. A poll by the same newspaper in December gave Funes 38 percent support and Avila 26.6 percent, and a December survey by the CIOPS polling group gave Funes a 17.3 point lead. Since El Salvador's 12-year civil war ended with peace accords in 1992, the FMLN has lost three presidential elections to ARENA, as its violent past and Marxist roots hung over it. Funes, however, is a center-leftist who promises to pursue market-friendly policies and maintain good relations with the United States if he wins. He appeals to pro-U.S. voters who have not previously backed the FMLN. His opponents worry that an FMLN victory could see El Salvador -- which relies heavily on remittances sent by some 2.5 million Salvadorans in the United States -- join a left-wing bloc of Latin American countries led by Venezuela.
