MEXICO CITY, Nov. 28 (Xinhua) -- Uruguayans go to the polls again on Sunday to choose a new president in a run-off election. Following are profiles of the two contenders.

    Jose Mujica from the ruling Broad Front party is to face opposition National Party candidate Luis Alberto Lacalle since they managed to advance into the second round thanks to their respective 48 percent and 28 percent support in October's first round.

    Latest polls showed that Mujica was favorite to win.

    Mujica was born in Montevideo on May 20, 1935. He was member ofthe National Party as a young man. In the 1960s and 1970s, he was one of the leaders of the Tupamaros urban guerrilla movement fighting the Uruguayan dictatorship.

    In 1972, he was captured and jailed for 14 years. Mujica was set free in 1985 when democracy was restored in the country.

    Years later, Mujica created the Popular Participation Movement (MPP), a political party within the Broad Front coalition. The MPP faction won over 300,000 votes in the 2004 national elections.

    After serving as a congressman, senator, Mujica was designated as agriculture minister, a position he held from 2005 to March last year, when he resigned from the post and returned to his seat in the Senate.

    On June 28 this year, he won the primary elections and was nominated as the presidential candidate of the Broad Front.

    He has pledged to continue the economic policies of the current government that have attracted foreign investment in dairy industry and forestry, decreased unemployment rate and enhanced minority rights.

    Mujica's challenger in the run-off, Lacalle, was born in Montevideo on July 13, 1941. He graduated with a degree in law from the national university and began to work as a journalist in 1961.

    Lacalle joined the National Party at the age of 17. His political career began in 1971 when he was elected deputy to the Montevideo parliament, a position he held until a military coup in1973. After democracy was restored in Uruguay, he became both a senator and then vice president of the Senate.

    Lacalle was elected state president in November 1989 and took office in March 1990 for a five-year term.

    During his term, Lacalle, along with his counterparts of Paraguay, Brazil and Argentina, co-founded the Mercosur trade bloc in 1991.

    In his current presidential campaign, he vowed to cut taxes and reduce bureaucracy in the small country sandwiched by Argentina and Brazil.