El Salvador’s incoming President, Salvador Sanchez Ceren, right, and his wife Margarita Villalta wave during his swearing in ceremony in San Salvador, El Salvador, on June 1, 2014.SAN SALVADOR, El Salvador – Rural schoolteacher turned rebel commander Salvador Sanchez Ceren was sworn in as president of El Salvador on Sunday, becoming the first former guerrilla will lead the Central American nation.
The 69-year-old leader began his 5-year term promising “honor, austerity, efficiency and transparency” at the inauguration ceremony attended by 13 heads of state or government.
Sanchez Ceren’s Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front battled U.S.-backed governments during a 12-year conflict in which some 76,000 people died. The Front became a political party after peace accords in 1992.
He alluded to that struggle Sunday, saying his government is possible “only because of the work of our heroes and martyrs … visionary people who gave their lives and dreamed of a country with democracy.”
The Front first won the presidency in 2009 under outgoing leader Mauricio Funes, a former journalist who didn’t take part in the fighting and governed largely as a centrist.