The article below is abridged from a June 3 statement by the Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador. For more information, visit
On June 1, Mauricio Funes and Salvador Sanchez Ceren were sworn in as president and vice-president of El Salvador at the Feria Internacional Convention Center in San Salvador.
It was a magical day for the Salvadoran people, social movement organisations, and the leftist Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front (FMLN), which Funes and Sanchez Ceren represent.
Counted among the 2000 invited guests were many international delegations and heads of state. Notably absent were presidents Hugo Chavez of Venezuela and Evo Morales of Bolivia, who were unable to attend due to last-minute concerns regarding their security while in the country.
In a powerful inaugural address, Funes promised that the change the people asked for with the election of the FMLN "begins now" and is in the hands of the people, not just the individual will of the president.
He vowed to work with the social movements to "create a new national project" based on social inclusion and guided by the forces of hope and optimism.
Several steps that he and cabinet members, who were sworn in immediately following the ceremony, will take to confront the deep economic and social crisis in El Salvador include an employment program to build more than 25,000 new houses, a central bank to guarantee credit to small-scale agricultural producers and the re-organisation of the Rural Community Solidarity Network to guarantee access to health, nutrition and free public education for the most vulnerable sectors of society.
The address was imbued with the themes of social justice, equality and of a "peaceful and democratic revolution". He stated that El Salvador would no longer have a "government of the few, of the privileged" but one where all people would be "recognised for their talents and honesty, not for their connections or their last name".
Despite the decorum and formality of the inauguration ceremony, many in the crowd erupted into cheers of "Si se pudo, Si se pudo! (Yes we did!)" and "El pueblo unido jamas sera vencido!" (The people united will never be defeated) with their left fists in the air.
More than 50,000 people formed a celebratory sea of red and white in the stadium, cheering and dancing. A banner hanging in the stadium read: "Only the people can guarantee that the electoral victory will become popular power."