SAN SALVADOR - Former journalist Mauricio Funes Monday became president of El Salvador at a ceremony witnessed by US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton as Washington seeks to work with a moderate Latin American left.

Clinton, who earlier hailed a "peaceful transfer of power" from a string of US-backed rightist governments to a party of former Marxist guerrillas, attended the inauguration that included both moderate and anti-US leftists.

As honor guards and bands playing patriotic music marked the way, Funes descended red-carpeted stairs to a podium inside a partially covered amphitheater packed with dignitaries fanning themselves in the tropical heat.

He followed visiting heads of state or their delegates like Vice President Alfredo Lazo of communist Cuba, which President Barack Obama wants to engage with on the condition Havana improves basic rights and moves toward democracy.

Funes, the first leftist president elected in the country in 20 years, has said he seeks full diplomatic relations with Cuba, ending El Salvador's status as the last Latin American holdout to normalization with Havana.

But another radical leftist, President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela, canceled his attendance, his office said.

Also present were Presidents Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva of Brazil and Michelle Bachelet of Chile.

Chris Sabatini, a US-based analyst with the Americas Society, said the pair, along with Funes, are "pragmatic" leftist leaders that Washington wants to promote as a new moderate leftist "pole" in the region.

Though the task is more difficult, the Obama administration also wants to engage with Cuba and Venezuela. Clinton has defended such moves as a way to check what she called "disturbing" Iranian and Chinese inroads in the region.

"Let me just underscore how I relieved I am and how pleased I am that we're going to have this peaceful transfer of power," Clinton told a press conference after arriving in El Salvador on Sunday.

"It's a real testament of the strength and durability of the democracy of the Americas," she said, hailing the "example" set by Funes and vowing to work closely with the new government.

She sent a similar message over the airwaves Monday in an interview with Salvadoran radio.

A senior US State Department official said the handover from former president Elias Antonio Saca to Funes is "a dramatic moment in Salvadoran political history.

"It represents an alternation of power betwen political parties, the first since the end of the Salvadoran conflict" in 1992, the official said.

But analysts like Michael Shifter of the Inter-American Dialogue said it also marks an end to a bitter period of the Cold War when Washington backed a military government against Marxists rebels now in the party led by Funes.

"It demonstrates that the US has a diferent mindset and approach toward the region, and that the Cold War is over," Shifter told AFP.

Funes, the candidate of the ex-rebel Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front (FMLN), defeated Rodrigo Avila of the conservative Arena party in March with 51.2 percent of the vote against 48.7 percent.

A bespectacled former TV journalist who models himself on moderate leftist leaders in Latin America like da Silva, Funes also welcomed comparisons to Obama during the election campaign.

He says he wants to maintain El Salvador's close relationship with Washington, but opponents fear he could be led by the FMLN old guard, like vice-president and former guerilla commander Salvador Sanchez Ceren.

During the 1980-1992 civil war, in which more than 70,000 died, his elder brother Roberto was killed by police.

In a fitting tribute to a peaceful democratic transition, an artillery cannon fired volleys of blanks after Funes took the oath of office.