SAN SALVADOR, El Salvador (AP) -- The country's former leftist rebels
                   celebrated advances Monday in nationwide elections, but the governing
                   rightist and their allies appeared to maintain a narrow majority in congress.

                   Hector Silva, candidate of the leftist Farabundo Marti National Liberation
                   Front, easily won re-election as mayor of the capital in Sunday's voting. His
                   leftist party also for the first time beat the ruling Nationalist Republican
                   Alliance in elections for the National Assembly, or congress.

                   It was a dramatic rebound for the Front, known as the FMLN. The party
                   was trounced in last year's presidential voting by Francisco Flores of the
                   Alliance, or ARENA, which has governed the country for more than a
                   decade.

                   With 88 percent of the Assembly vote counted, the FMLN and ARENA
                   were tied with 35 percent each, said Julio Hernandez, head of the Supreme
                   Electoral Tribunal. Early calculations indicated the FMLN would have 31
                   seats in the 84-member Assembly, and that ARENA would have 29, he
                   said.

                   Three years ago, ARENA won 28 seats to 27 for the leftists. But the
                   conservative National Conciliation Party, which works closely with the
                   government, was expected to win 14 seats -- enough to keep rightists in
                   control of the Assembly.

                   Hernandez estimated that the center-left Democratic Center Union would
                   have three seats, the Christian Democratic Party five and the National
                   Action Party two.

                   "We are the leading political force in the country; the partial results give us a
                   plurality in the Assembly, and we have also taken important city halls from
                   ARENA," said Schafick Handal, a former guerrilla commander who is now
                   an FMLN congressman.

                   Many saw Silva's re-election as a possible launching pad for the 2004
                   presidential race. With 92 percent of the vote counted in the capital, the
                   Boston-born gynecologist had 56 percent of the vote to 39 percent for
                   ARENA's Luis Cardenal.

                   Silva vowed to try to form a broad coalition of parties to govern the city --
                   something that also might be useful in a future presidential bid in a multiparty
                   political system.

                   The FMLN became a political party after signing a peace treaty with the
                   government in January 1992.