Mauricio Funes

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Mauricio Funes is a candidate for El Salvador's 2009 presidential election. He will be representing the left wing FMLN political party. Before being nominated on September 28th, 2007 Mauricio Funes was a journalist for Channel 15. He gained fame for his morning interview program, that was generally critical of the Salvadoran government. Nonetheless, it has been one of the only interview shows in the Salvadoran media outlets to do so since most of the print and television media are regarded as right wing in their coverage. Funes has for a long time been considered a contender for the presidency but he had previously rejected the candidature due to his reluctance to leave his career in Journalism and also due to previous internal opposition inside the FMLN against an 'outsider candidate'. Funes would be the first candidate from the FMLN to not be an ex-guerrilla commander, neither a member of the party (in 1994 the FMLN partipated in the presidential election as the main force of a coaliton of left-wing political parties, carrying a civil as a candidate). As of April 2008, his only opponent in the election for the presidency is ARENA's Rodrigo Avila, former deputy director of the National Police.

[edit] Education and Personal Life

Mauricio Funes was born on October 18, 1959 in San Salvador, El Salvador. He is married to Vanda Pignato and is expecting. Funes has three boys. He graduated from the Externado San Jose and later went on to study Literature at Universidad Centroamericana "José Simeón Cañas"(UCA) in San Salvador, but was unable to finish the carrer.

Mauricio Funes' oldest son, who was 27 years old, died while being attacked by a Moroccan delinquent in Paris, France. He was studying Photography.[1]