MAPUTO, Oct. 15 (Xinhua) -- Mozambicans went to the polls on Wednesday to elect the southern African country's fourth president since its independence in 1975, a new parliament of 250 deputies and 980 members of the provincial assemblies.

The presidential race will largely be a showdown between the former Defense Minister, Filipe Nyusi of the ruling Frelimo party; Afonso Dhlakama, leader of the main opposition Renamo; and Daviz Simango, leader of the second-largest opposition Mozambique Democratic Movement (MDM).

Filipe Nyusi, born in 1959, had served as the defense minister from 2008 to early 2014, and was elected as the ruling Frelimo's presidential candidate at the end of February, to replace the incumbent president Armando Guebuza.

Born in the northern province of Cabo Delgado which borders with Tanzania, Nyusi joined the then Mozambique Liberation Front (Frelimo) in 1973 when he was only 14 years old, and received politico-military training in Nachingwea guerrilla training center, in Tanzania.

Once a mechanical engineer, Nyusi has a sound managerial background mainly in the railways sector, for the fact that he had worked for the state-owned Mozambique Ports and Railways authority prior to his appointment to the cabinet by President Armando Guebuza.

Afonso Dhlakama, born in 1953 in the central province of Sofala, is the leader of the former rebel movement Renamo that fought the Frelimo government in the Mozambican civil war before signing a peace agreement and becoming an opposition political party in the early 1990s.

It is the fifth elections since the country's deadly civil war ended in 1992, and Dhlakama has competed for all, although he failed the previous four elections against the ruling party.

Daviz Simango, the youngest of the three presidential candidates, born in 1964, runs the municipality of Beira, in Sofala province, central Mozambique.

Simango, a civil engineer, is the son of Uria Simango, the first Vice President of Frelimo. He joined the Renamo in 1997 and became the mayor of Beira in 2003 as its candidate.

He was expelled and on March 6, 2009 founded a new political party, MDM. In 2009, he ran for the first time as the party's presidential candidate and placed third with 8.6 percent of the total vote in the election.