Salvador Presidential Choice Named : Politics: Right-wing party picks San Salvador’s mayor in launching first postwar campaign.

Signaling the official start of El Salvador’s first postwar election campaign, the ruling party named its presidential candidate Sunday and used the occasion to defend party founder and reputed death-squad leader Roberto d’Aubuisson.

The right-wing Nationalist Republican Alliance formally chose San Salvador Mayor Armando Calderon Sol as its candidate in elections next March that will have former Marxist guerrillas taking part for the first time.

The guerrillas of the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front disarmed and became a legal political party as part of U.N.-brokered peace accords that ended this country’s brutal civil war last year.

More than 10,000 members of the ruling party--chanting their slogan, “Fatherland, yes! Communism, no!”--crowded into a downtown gymnasium Sunday morning for a national convention to nominate Calderon Sol.

The convention also dedicated a fair amount of time to honoring the late D’Aubuisson, whose name was invoked as a champion of the fight against communism. Many in the crowd wore “D’Aubuisson, you will live forever” T-shirts.

D’Aubuisson, who died of cancer last year, was cited in a recent U.N.-sponsored report on war atrocities as having ordered the 1980 assassination of Archbishop Oscar Arnulfo Romero. He was frequently accused of leading death squads.

“The lies and frightful accusations that have always been made against you, but that have never been sustained with convincing and irrefutable proof, unite us now more than ever to defend your memory,” said Calderon Sol, 44.

As he concluded his remarks, red, white and blue balloons fell from the ceiling and musical bands launched into repeated renditions of the Arena theme song, which pledges to make “El Salvador, the tomb where the Reds will end up.”

Calderon Sol, a portly father of three, is a lawyer and was elected mayor of this capital in 1988.

While the right appears organized and ready to launch what promises to be an intense campaign, El Salvador’s political left and center are in disarray.

The centrist Christian Democratic Party, which held the presidency under Jose Napoleon Duarte from 1984 to 1989, is sharply divided and suffering from charges of corruption. A coalition of leftists, including the former rebels, cannot agree on candidates.

Sunday’s convention offered a glimpse of the rightists’ election strategy. Their party will try to portray itself as the entity that brought peace and the former guerrillas as warmongers.

“Now we can say with pride we were the political force that had . . . enough strength to make those who carried guns sit at a (negotiation) table and enter the democratic system that our party had so fought for,” President Alfredo Cristiani said.

While Cristiani is given credit for his role in promoting peace negotiations, he often did so over the opposition of his party’s powerful hard-liners.

Government forces and the guerrillas had fought to a virtual standstill by 1990, a situation that also contributed to forcing peace talks.