As the campaigns for the presidential and parliamentary elections reach a climax, the signs are that the president, Yoweri Museveni, and his ruling National Resistance Movement (NRM) party are both heading for victory on polling day, February 18th. The NRM's candidates will have been buoyed by the findings of three national opinion polls on voter intentions, all of which predicted wins for the president and his party. While it would be foolish to give too much weight to any opinion poll in Uganda, a country where such surveys can be unreliable, all three polls carried out in November and December made similar predictions, lending them credence. In the presidential race, the polls put the level of support for Mr Museveni at 65-67%, with Mr Besigye the best of the rest at 12-19%. There is little evidence of much support, if any, for the other candidates.

Of the three polls, one carried out by Afrobarometer, an organisation that monitors public attitudes in Africa, with backing from several non-African government agencies, carries the most weight and provides the most interesting insights. The poll gave a regional breakdown of support levels, showing Mr Museveni well ahead in all areas of the country. The high level of support in the west (85%) was to be expected, as it is the president's home region, but he also scored 64% in the east, 49% in the centre, where Buganda opposition is greatest, and a remarkable 62% in the north, a region usually written off as totally alienated from the president and his party. If support for Mr Museveni is close to the level indicated by the polls, he will romp home to another term as president. However, there has been some controversy over one of the polls carried out by a research organisation called Synovate, the findings of which were published by the state-run newspaper, New Vision. The paper reported that the poll had been commissioned by the opposition but then suppressed when the results proved so disappointing. Both Synovate and the opposition parties have denied the existence of the poll, so it is unclear if the poll was merely NRM propaganda or another indication of an ailing opposition.