El Salvador election result favoring Sanchez Ceren 'irreversible': Tribunal

Reuters
Salvador Sanchez Ceren, the presidential candidate for the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front (FMLN), gives a speech to his supporters, after the official election results were released, in San Salvador March 9, 2014. REUTERS/Henry Romero

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - El Salvador presidential election results favoring former Marxist guerrilla leader Salvador Sanchez Ceren are irreversible, the head of the country's electoral tribunal said on Monday. "We put our technical teams to work all night, which is why I can tell you with certainty that the result of this election is irreversible," Eugenio Chicas told reporters. He said definitive results would be ready in 3 or 4 days. Sanchez Ceren of the ruling Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front (FMLN), which as a rebel group fought a string of U.S.-backed governments in the 1980-92 civil war, won 50.11 percent support in Sunday's election, preliminary results showed. Challenger Norman Quijano, the 67-year-old former mayor of San Salvador and candidate of the right-wing Nationalist Republican Alliance (Arena) party, had 49.89 percent support. He claimed fraud and insisted he was the real winner. (Reporting by Noe Torres and Nelson Renteria)