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Leftist Mauricio Funes has completed a historic journey for his party of former rebels after winning El Salvador's presidential elections and ending two decades of right-wing rule.
The former television journalist declared himself president-elect of the tiny Central American nation as a majority of exit polls handed him victory, late Sunday.
His only rival, ruling right-wing candidate Rodrigo Avila, shortly afterwards conceded defeat.
The win represents a seismic power shift in the poverty and crime stricken country, where former Marxist rebels have grabbed power 17 years after a devastating civil war.
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Funes led Sunday's polls, which were peaceful, with 51.2 per cent of the vote after more than 90 per cent of ballots were counted, electoral authorities said.
The head of the ex-guerilla Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front (FMLN) pulled ahead of Avila, from the ARENA party, who garnered 48.7 per cent of votes as counting neared a close.
"I'm the president-elect of the Salvadorans," Funes told a news conference in a hotel in the capital.
"Yes, we could!" his red-clad supporters shouted in streets across the country, clearly euphoric after having made three failed bids at the presidency since the end of the 12-year civil war in 1992.
"I want to be the real president of the real reconstruction of the country, which starts with the reconstruction of people," Funes said.
Avila, a former police chief and protege of outgoing president Elias Antonio Saca, had warned on the campaign trail in the polarised country that a leftist victory would turn the country into a satellite of Venezuela.
"I want to make it known to Mauricio Funes ... that in this close battle the margin of difference has given him the advantage," Avila conceded, late Sunday.
Now a leftist party, the FMLN was a coalition of Marxist guerrillas who battled the government during the civil war in which more than 70,000 people died.
Funes identifies himself with moderates, such as President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva of Brazil as opposed to Venezuela's firebrand President Hugo Chavez, and is the first FMLN presidential candidate who has never served as an armed combatant.
"Our plan is to make El Salvador the most dynamic economy of Central America," he said on Sunday, addressing a key issue for the country closely tied to the United States and expecting to be hard hit by the financial crisis.
Thousands of the 2.5 million US-based Salvadorans came home to vote in an election watched closely by the United States, which backed a repressive military government during the civil war.
The United States will respect the choice Salvadorans make in their election, the State Department's top diplomat for Latin America, Tom Shannon, said on Friday, after several US politicians warned that a Funes victory would jeopardise US national security interests in the region.
El Salvador last weekend welcomed its last returning soldiers from Iraq, where it once had 6,000 troops.
Its economy also depends heavily on money sent home from mainly US-based Salvadorans, which has dropped in recent months.
Funes has tough negotiations expected ahead in a congress where no party has a majority, despite his party's victory in parliamentary polls six weeks ago.
President-elect of El Salvador, Mauricio Funes 
Sunday night, Mauricio Funes of the left-wing Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN) party declared victory in El Salvador's 2009 presidential elections. Although El Salvador's Supreme Electoral Tribunal has not yet certified a winner, Funes shows an insurmountable lead in the results, besting Alianza Republicana Nacionalista (ARENA) candidate Rodrigo Ávila by a margin of 51.27% to 48.73%, with 90.68% of votes counted. Ávila conceded defeat, vowing that ARENA would remain vigorous in opposition. 

Funes' victory marks a major shift in the politics of the country: ARENA has controlled the presidency of El Salvador since the end of El Salvador's civil war in 1991. The FMLN was founded by Marxist guerrillas who fought in the civil war. When the guerrillas and the government signed a peace agreement in 1992, the FMLN became a political party. 

Funes, a former television journalist, is the first FMLN leader not to have been an combatant in the war. In his victory speech in San Salvador Sunday night, he said: "I want to be the real president of the real reconstruction of the country, which starts with the reconstruction of people."

"I want to thank all the people who voted for me and chose that path of hope and change," added Funes. 

During the polarizing electoral campaign, Ávila tied the FMLN to communism and said that an FMLN victory would turn El Salvador into a satellite of Hugo Chávez's Venezuela. Discontent with unemployment, gang violence and corruption under the government of ARENA president Antonio "Tony" Saca trumped concerns that the FMLN would return to its radical roots or spoil El Salvador's historically close relationship with the United States.

About 60% of the electorate voted, including thousands who returned to the country from the United States in order to cast ballots.