San Salvador, El Salvador  - El Salvador's 4.2 million voters are began to voting Sunday to elect 262 city mayors and 84 seats in the national parliament in what is widely regarded as a test for the presidential elections scheduled for March 15.

According to opinion polls, the elections are mainly a contest between two major political forces: the ruling conservative Nationalist Republican Alliance (ARENA) of outgoing President Antonia Saca, which 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.

The remaining parties enjoy only minimal voter support.

First results are expected on Monday morning at the earliest. dpa