FMLN candidate asks voters not to be violent

FMLN presidential candidate Mauricio Funes has made an unusual appeal to exhort his countrymen not to become violent during Sunday's election.

Funes made the statement in a report distributed by the Cuban propaganda agency Prensa Latina.

The statement comes as the FMLN faces the possibility of winning the presidency without resorting to violence. The FMLN is allied with street gangs, known as maras, which act as the party's local enforcers (click here for video).

The FMLN and the Cuban regime are accusing conservative ARENA party activists of isolated acts of harassment. Funes warned his supporters not to respond to what he called "provocations."

Max Manwaring, an El Salvador expert at the US Army's Strategic Studies Institute and a noted authority on the FMLN, reported in 2005 that the more sophisticated Central American gangs were becoming politically active in order to defend and expand their territories and illegal operations.

Gangs provide FMLN with lethal political muscle

Many of the Salvadoran gangs plaguing both El Salvador and the United States find their origins in the FMLN from its guerrilla days.

What many people don't know is that the FMLN has been using the gangs inside El Salvador as political muscle for the 2009 presidential campaign.

The Salvadoran press has been reporting it for a long time, and some FMLN people have come forward with complaints. The ARENA party has even made political ads about the problem, as this Spanish-language video shows.