El Salvador ? Two decades ago, the United States backed Salvadoran governments as they battled leftist guerrillas who ultimately laid down their arms. Now the former U.S. enemies are back — this time as El Salvador’s first elected leftist government.

The Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front, or FMLN, is the second former foe of the United States to democratically take power in Latin America’s lurch to the left. In 2006, Nicaraguans elected Daniel Ortega two decades after his Sandinista government fought U.S.-backed Contra rebels, and his relations with Washington have remained tense under President Barack Obama’s administration.

But the FMLN rebels won El Salvador’s presidency behind a charismatic former television journalist who is more interested in comparing his message of change with Obama’s than matching the anti-U.S. rhetoric of Ortega.

Mauricio Funes, who gave up his journalism career less than two years ago to become the FMLN presidential candidate, sought Monday to quell fears that his historic victory would usher in a communist regime in the war-scarred Central American country.