(Angus Reid Global Monitor) - The presidential candidate of the left-leaning Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN) is ahead in El Salvador, according to a poll by Consulta Mitofsky released by TCS. 33.8 per cent of respondents would vote for Mauricio Funes in next year’s ballot.

Rodrigo Ávila of the governing Nationalist Republican Alliance (ARENA) is a close second with 29.3 per cent. More than a third of respondents remain undecided.

ARENA’s Antonio Saca, a media businessman, was elected in March 2004, garnering 57.73 per cent of the vote. ARENA candidates have won the last four presidential elections in the Central American country. Saca is ineligible for a consecutive term in office.

In September 2007, Funes became the FMLN’s presidential nominee. In March 2008, Ávila, a former National Police chief, won ARENA’s three-candidate internal nationwide primary.

The FMLN was once an umbrella armed group of left-wing revolutionaries fighting against the Salvadoran establishment. In the early 1990s, the FMLN was disbanded and became a legal political party.

In late June, during a visit to California, Funes said he would not remove El Salvador from the Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA), adding, "We will respect trade deals with other countries, including the one with the United States and with Central America. (...) And we will keep the dollar because scrapping it would generate uncertainty."

The U.S. dollar has been El Salvador’s official currency since 2001.

The next legislative election is scheduled for Jan. 18, 2009, with a presidential ballot following on Mar. 15.

Polling Data

Which of these candidates would you vote for in the next presidential election?

Source: Consulta Mitofsky / TCS
Methodology: Face-to-face interviews with 1,200 Salvadoran adults, conducted from Jun. 19 to Jun. 22, 2008. Margin of error is 2.85 per cent.

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