San Salvador, March 10 (RHC) -- The candidate of the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front, the FMLN) Salvador Sanchez Ceren has been declared the winner in El Salvador's presidential runoff on Sunday, with 50.11 percent of the votes.

On Sunday evening, the Supreme Electoral Council (TSE) announced Sanchez Ceren's victory after 99.90 percent of the votes had been counted. The candidate of opposition Nationalist Republican Alliance, ARENA, Norman Quijano, came in with 49.89 pecent of the vote and refused to recognize Ceren's victory.

In a brief statement after the victory announcement, the 69-year-old Ceren reaffirmed his commitment to fight against poverty and for the unity of the Salvadoran people. He said: "El Salvador needs all the forces to be united and tonight we celebrate the will of the Salvadorian people, so we are going to build a broad national agreement between government, businessmen and workers." And the new president-elect added: "I want to tell my rival and his party that in my government, we will have open arms so that together we will build a new country."