MAPUTO, Nov. 30 (Xinhuaent) -- Mozambique is to hold the third general elections on Wednesday and Thursday. Although there are five contenders in the presidential race, the competition is mainly between the ruling FRELIMO Party's candidate Armando Guebuza and the major opposition leader Afonso Dhlakama.

    The Mozambican Liberation Front (FRELIMO) has ruled Mozambique since its independence from Portugal's colonial rule in 1975. The party was founded in 1961 as an anti-Portuguese guerrilla movementunder the leadership of Eduardo Mondlane.

    After the new reformist government in Portugal granted independence to its African colonies, FRELIMO established a one-party state based on socialist principles with Samora Machel as president.

    A civil war between FRELIMO and an anti-government faction known as RENAMO broke out in 1976, which claimed around one million lives and devastated the country's economy. A peace accordwas not signed until 1992.

    After Machel's death in an airplane crash in South African territory, Joaquim Chissano began to lead both the party and the state. Chissano called for multiparty elections in 1994, putting an end to single-party rule.

    At the most recent elections in late 1999, President Chissano was reelected with 52.3 percent of the votes cast, and FRELIMO secured 133 of 250 parliamentary seats.

    The party has selected its secretary-general Armando Guebuza tobe its candidate in the upcoming presidential elections.

    The Mozambican National Resistance (RENAMO) is a conservative political party in Mozambique led by Afonso Dhlakama.

    RENAMO was formed as an anti-government political organization in early 1976. During Mozambique's civil war, the party also received support from the apartheid regime of South Africa and some western countries.

    A permanent peace accord between FRELIMO and RENAMO, the General Peace Agreement, was signed in 1992 in Rome and was supervised by the United Nations until 1994.

    Today, RENAMO has emerged as the largest opposition party in Mozambique. In the presidential election of December 1999, Dhlakama won 47.7 percent of the votes, defeated by President Chissano with a small margin of 4.6 percent. RENAMO holds 117 of 250 parliamentary seats. Enditem