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Polls Open In El Salvador Presidential Election

Voters in El Salvador are electing a new president Sunday. The former Marxist guerrillas — or the FMLN, as they're known — have put forward a relatively young journalist, Mauricio Funes, as their candidate. He's running against the former head of the national police, Rodrigo Ávila, of the ruling, right-wing ARENA party.

If Funes wins, it could swing a staunch, conservative ally of the U.S. in Central America to the left.

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Jason Beaubien
Jason Beaubien is a Peabody award-winning journalist. He's filed stories from more than 60 countries around the world. His reporting tends to focus on issues in lower-income countries. Often his reports highlight inequities, injustices and abuses of power. He also regularly writes about natural disasters, wars and human conflict. Over the last two decades he's covered hurricanes in the Caribbean, typhoons in the Philippines, multiple earthquakes in Haiti, the Arab Spring, the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the drug war in Mexico.