San Salvador, El Salvador - El Salvador on Sunday is likely to move one further step towards another leftist government in Central America, as the country's 4.2 million voters elect 262 city mayors and 84 seats in the national parliament.

Sunday's vote is widely regarded a test for the presidential elections scheduled for March 15. Currently, Guatemala and Nicaragua are ruled by left-leaning governments.

According to opinion polls, the elections are mainly a contest between two major political forces, while the remaining parties enjoy only minimal voter support.

The ruling conservative Nationalist Republican Alliance (ARENA) of outgoing President Antonia Saca trails in the polls after the leftist Farabundo Marti Front for National Liberation (FMLN), a former guerilla movement emerging from the country's civil war that ended in 1992.

Both parties will focus on expanding their parliamentary strength in view of the upcoming presidential elections.

In the capital San Salvador, FMLN Mayor Violeta Menjivar leads opinion polls against ARENA candidate Norman Quijano in her re-election bid.

The attempts of neoliberal Saca to lead the country out of poverty ended mainly in failure, with critics slamming him for his populist pledge to support the country's poorest families with 15 dollars a month.

The global downturn dealt another blow to Saca's liberal economic policies, also causing a drop in remittances from emigrants in the US, San Salvador's most important foreign currency source.

A hard approach against crime did not lead to dropping crime rates, the state has failed to control violent youth gangs that terrorize the country.

El Salvador has one of the highest murder rates worldwide with 60 murders per 100,000 inhabitants, far ahead of Mexico or neighbouring countries Guatemala and Honduras.

Mauricio Funes, the FMLN's candidate for the presidency, announced plans to rekindle relations with communist Cuba and Venezuela, while Saca rebuffed close ties with Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, foregoing his offer for cheap oil deliveries.

Funes is promising to lead the country out of its crisis, promote development and consolidate democracy and the rule of law, while refraining from openly socialist or communist slogans.

He vowed to promote Central American integration, retain a free trade agreement with the United States and to strengthen national defence and security.