* Yoweri Museveni eyes 30 years at helm
* Opposition says it fears widespread vote-rigging
By Barry Malone
KAMPALA, Feb 18 (Reuters) - Ugandans vote on Friday in elections expected to return long-serving President Yoweri Museveni to power after a bitter campaign marked by opposition calls for street protests if the vote is deemed rigged.
The east African country's front-running opposition candidate, Kizza Besigye, has repeatedly said there could be Egyptian-style unrest if the poll is unfair.
The discovery of billions of barrels of recoverable oil reserves along the country's western border has upped the stakes. The vote's winner will be tasked with charting Uganda's emergence as a top-50 oil producer and managing the resulting petrodollars and foreign investor interest.
This will be the third consecutive poll in which Museveni, a former guerilla leader, and his former bush war doctor have gone head to head. The last two ended in dispute as Besigye appealed unsuccessfully to the Supreme Court to overturn the results.
Besigye intends to run his own tally this year.
"We're not going to the courts again," the 54-year-old told his final election rally. "If our results don't tally with those of the electoral commission, I will ask the people themselves to deal with the situation directly."
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Analysts however say a public uprising is not likely to succeed in Uganda, where a population less educated and less Internet-savvy than that of Egypt is afraid of an army with a history of violently suppressing dissent.
The opposition alleges the ruling National Resistance Movement (NRM) has been using bribery to sway voters.
"The amount of money the NRM have spent on this election is phenomenal," a diplomat who did not want to be named told Reuters.
"And the fact that there is little distinction between party and state is worrying. It's pretty clear state coffers are supporting Museveni."
The government says the opposition is trying to undermine a vote it knows it will lose.
The capital Kampala was calm ahead of polls opening but there was a visible increase in security, with armed police patrolling the streets in large numbers on foot and truckloads of soldiers being carted around the city late on Thursday.
CORRUPTION CONCERN
67-year-old Museveni, in power since 1986, has largely avoided publicly challenging Besigye this time, though he has threatened to have him arrested should he spark trouble.
Museveni has been credited with bringing stability to a country that has never witnessed a democratic transfer of power since independence and with fostering economic growth, winning strong praise from the West.
But in recent years his popularity at home and abroad has waned. Rights groups lambast what they say is a growing authoritarianism and tolerance of corruption -- a vice voters blame for poverty.
In 2005, he scrapped presidential term limits, sparking suspicions he wanted to stay in power for the rest of his life.
Polls open around the country at 0400 GMT. Some 14 million Ugandans will cast their choices at almost 24,000 polling stations. The country's electoral commission says it will announce the results within 48 hours of the polls closing. (Editing by Richard Lough and Andrew Roche)
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