The Scottish National Party (SNP) is widely tipped to wrest control from the governing Labour Party, ending its dominance of Scottish politics and dealing a blow to Tony Blair a week before he is expected to announce his resignation.

Having the SNP in power in Edinburgh would also be a headache for Britain's Scottish chancellor of the exchequer Gordon Brown, just as he takes over as prime minister.

But SNP leader Alex Salmond, who wants a referendum on independence in 2010, was concentrating on another Gordon Thursday: the north-east Scotland constituency of that name where he is hoping to be elected.

"I can't tell you who I voted for. Secrecy of the ballot," said a smiling Salmond as he emerged from the polling station in his home village of Strichen, 35 miles north of Aberdeen.

"But let's put it this way: I voted for a new government for Scotland and a new hope for the future."

Wearing a dark blue suit, light blue shirt and tie emblazoned with small maps of Scotland filled with the country's blue and white Saltire flag, Salmond refused to make predictions about the election result.

But he told AFP: "The overwhelming majority of people in Scotland thought we ran the best campaign. We ran a very positive campaign about the future of Scotland. We won the campaign in the opinion of the people."

Salmond's reticence came despite a YouGov poll for Thursday's Daily Telegraph suggesting the SNP was well-placed to going into the keenly-watched vote.

The eve-of-election survey of 1,137 Scottish voters gave the nationalists a six-point lead over Labour in the first-past-the-post constituency vote and a five-point lead in the proportional regional vote.

Scotland has two voting methods to return its 129 MSPs (members of the Scottish Parliament): majority voting for 73 single member constituencies and a party list system to elect seven MSPs for each of Scotland's eight regions.