Background
Born into a wealthy family in San Salvador.
Born into a wealthy family in San Salvador.
In the local and congressional elections of March 1988, ARENA won 80% of the local votes and 31 of the 60 seats in the Congress; Cristiani won one of the seats. In the 1989 presidential election, Cristiani was elected President with 53.8% of the votes. His swearing-in marked the beginning of a 20-year period of ARENA presidencies, and also marked only the second time in El Salvador's history that the ruling party peacefully surrendered power to the opposition.
After becoming the President of El Salvador, he, with members of his cabinet, and other colleagues visited Europe and London. He was the principal guest at the dinner held in his honour by the Western Goals Institute at Simpsons-in-the-Strand, London, on 25 September 1989. The guest list included such figures as Sir Alfred Sherman (policy advisor to Margaret Thatcher), Professor Antony Flew, ZigmuntSzkopiak, Denis Walker and Dr Harvey Ward, all of whom were active anti-communists. He retired from politics in 1994 when his presidential term ended, and returned as president of the ARENA party in 2009 after the first presidential defeat of ARENA in twenty years. He is currently leading an institutional reform process of this political party.
African Gospel Church
He married Margarita Llach in 1970, and has three children and nine grandchildren.