Caracas  - Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez on Monday congratulated fellow-leftist Mauricio Funes for his historic win a day earlier in El Salvador's presidential election.

In a statement issued by the Venezuelan Foreign Ministry, Chavez described the electoral victory as "unobjectionable and resounding," and offered Funes his assistance.

The result "consolidates the historic current that has risen across Latin America and the Caribbean in this first decade of the 21st century," Chavez said, noting the region's swing to the left.

"The Salvadoran people did not waver, they took a step forward and showed their clarity and courage, to defeat a campaign of lies, rubbish and manipulations," he said of allegations that a Funes victory would bring on communism.

The leftist Funes, 49, a former television journalist, has repeatedly insisted that he is politically closer to more moderate Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva than to Chavez. (dpa)