Carlos Mauricio Funes Cartagena (18 October 1959 – 21 January 2025) was a Salvadoran politician and journalist who served as the 79th president of El Salvador from 2009 to 2014. Funes won the 2009 presidential election as the candidate of the left-wing Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN).

Funes resided in exile in Nicaragua from 2016 until his death, while his immediate family continues to reside there, following allegations of criminal conduct during his tenure. In July 2023, he was placed under sanctions by the U.S. State Department following his conviction in absentia for negotiations related to the gang truces he made while in office, illicit enrichment, and tax evasion. Funes died in exile in Nicaragua in 2025.

Carlos Mauricio Funes Cartagena was born in San Salvador, El Salvador on 18 October 1959. Funes' parents were Roberto Funes and María Mirna and he had two brothers. Funes completed his high school diplomat at the Jesuit-run Externado San José and graduated as a Bachelor of Arts in Mass Media from the Central American University.

Funes started working as a news reporter for Channel 10 in February 1986. The following year, he started working for Channel 12. He worked as a news director and hosted The Daily Interview program. In 1991, Funes interviewed Schafik Hándal, a guerrilla leader of the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN) during the Salvadoran Civil War, resulting in Channel 12 losing advertisers and coming under public scrutiny. In 1994, Funes was one of four winners of the Maria Moors Cabot Prize from Columbia University for "promoting press freedom and inter-American understanding". He also received awards from UNICEF and the Association of Salvadoran Journalists. Funes also worked as a news corresponded for CNN en Español from 1997 to 2005. Funes left Channel 12 in February 2005 and began working for channels owned by Grupo Megavisión.

Funes sought to gain the FMLN's presidential nomination for the 2004 presidential election. His candidacy was opposed by senior FMLN leaders who argued that Funes was not a historic member of the FMLN and would not be able to unite the party behind his campaign. Funes' candidacy was vetoed by Hándal, by then party's secretary-general. Hándal eventually became the party's nominee but lost to Antonio Saca of the right-wing Nationalist Republican Alliance (ARENA).

Ahead of the 2009 presidential election, the reformist wing of the FMLN led by Óscar Ortiz proposed to selected Funes as its presidential candidate. Senior FMLN leadership accepted Ortiz's proposal on the condition that Salvador Sánchez Cerén, a former FMLN civil war guerrilla leader, would be Funes' vice presidential running mate. Some FMLN members questioned Funes' ideological commitment to the party but accepted Cerén being Funes' running mate as an acceptable concession. Funes officially became the FMLN's presidential candidate on 28 September 2007 becoming the first non-guerrilla to be the party's presidential candidate. His candidacy was registered with the Supreme Electoral Court (TSE) on 2 September 2008.

Funes' main opponent in the 2009 presidential election was ARENA's Rodrigo Ávila, the former chief of the National Civil Police (PNC). The election was a two-way race between Funes and Ávila after the presidential candidates of the National Conciliation Party (PCN) and Christian Democratic Party both dropped out following poor results in the legislative and local elections two months before the presidential election.

Funes modeled his presidential campaigned off of United States president Barack Obama, using his image in campaign advertisements and adopting Obama's slogan "Yes, we can!". Funes campaigned on combatting tax evasion, creating jobs for Salvadoran expatriates returning from the United States, and investing in the country's agricultural industry. Funes also promised to keep the United States dollar as El Salvador's official currency (dollarization occurred in 2001 under President Francisco Flores Pérez). Ávila accused Funes of being a puppet for the FMLN's senior leadership and other critics believed that Cerén would be the power behind the throne. Critics also claimed that El Salvador would become a Venezuelan satellite state, which Funes denied.