NCP drops out of El Salvador pres. race

The election is now a two-way contest between Rodrigo Avila, of the ruling conservative Arena party, and Mauricio Funes, who is seeking to become El Salvador's first leftist president since 1992 peace accords ended the civil war.

President Tony Saca, a close U.S. ally, cannot run for re-election by law.

The National Conciliation Party announced it was leaving the race for lack of funds and expelled its candidate for refusing to abide by the decision. The candidate for another small conservative party, the Christian Democrats, dropped out of the race earlier this week.

Since dropping out, neither party has taken sides in the race, although many Salvadorans believe a deal was struck with Arena for their departure. “I have no doubt that this is because of some request from Arena,” said Roberto Rubio, a political analyst and director of the National Foundation for Development. Funes, a television journalist running for the guerrilla group-turned-political party Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front, or FMLN, appears to be the election front-runner. But recent polls show Avila gaining ground.

The ruling Arena party has warned that an opposition victory will be a setback for democracy, saying Funes is in the same mold as President Hugo Chavez and Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega, both leftists.

Funes has dismissed the allegations and taken pains to reach out to Latin America's more moderate leftists, including Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.

In local elections last month, the ruling conservatives won the largest number of municipal elections, even wresting the nation's capital and FMLN stronghold of San Salvador. The FMLN won the most seats in the national legislature, though it fell short of a majority.

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