Political Career
On 21 March 2004 Saca was elected President of El Salvador, and on 1 June 2004 succeeded President Francisco Flores. Both Saca and Flores are members of the conservative Nationalist Republican Alliance party, generally known by its Spanish-language acronym ARENA.
During the election campaign, some commentators criticized Saca's lack of political experience. In the election, Saca defeated leftist Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN) candidate, Schafik Handal, also of Palestinian descent. The election results were:
- Antonio Saca (ARENA) 57.7%
- Schafik Handal (FMLN) 35.6%
- Héctor Silva (CDU-PDC) 3.9%
- Other 2.8%
The ARENA party expelled Saca in December 2009 for his suspected involvement in getting certain ARENA legislators to defect to a new party, the Grand Alliance for National Unity, in cooperation with the ruling FMLN government.
Read more about this topic: Antonio Saca
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“He knows nothing and thinks he knows everything. That points clearly to a political career.”
—George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950)