Personal Info
- Country of residence: Spain
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Shafik George Handal (Spanish: Schafik Hándal) (October 14, 1930 AD - January 24, 2006) was a Salvadoran politician, born in Asulutan, El Salvador, the son of Palestinian immigrants from Bethlehem.
his life
Between 1973 and 1994, he was the general secretary of the Communist Party of El Salvador, and he believed at the time that access to power through the ballot box was an alternative to the military struggle in El Salvador. However, twice after the allegedly rigged elections in 1972 and 1977 - and despite the intervention of the Communist Party of Cuba - Handal became convinced that the military dictatorship could not be defeated through elections. As a guerrilla leader in the late 1970s and early 1980s, he was a member of the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN), a group of five opposition forces in El Salvador.
Following the 1992 peace agreement that put an end to the conflict in the country, the Farabundo Marti Front was transformed from a guerrilla army into a political party, and Handal became the party's general coordinator. In 1997 Handal was elected to the Salvadoran Legislative Assembly, where he led the FMLN party bloc.
Handal was the candidate of the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front in the Salvadoran presidential elections on March 21, 2004 AD. His electoral campaign included left-wing tendencies, but also called for friendly relations with the United States of America, but he lost the elections to the head of the conservative ruling party, Antonio Saga - who also hails from Palestinian origin from Bethlehem - 58% to 36%. And that in the elections witnessed a turnout of 70%.
Handal died about two years after losing the elections, on January 24, 2006, of a heart attack. He lost consciousness at Kampala airport after returning from Bolivia, where he had attended the inauguration ceremony of President Evo Morales.
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