KAMPALA, Aug. 29 (Xinhua) -- Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni has announced that he would join the presidential race for his fourth term in the country's upcoming elections early next year, according to a statement issued here on Sunday.

According to the State House statement, Museveni told a large gathering on Saturday in Mbarara, western Uganda, that he is to run for chairmanship of the ruling National Resistance Movement (NRM) Party and its Presidential flag bearer.

He told the crowd as a chief guest at the commissioning of the Western Uganda Center for People with Disabilities that he handed in his nomination papers to the NRM Electoral Commission on Friday and urged party members to embrace his candidature in the forthcoming delegates' conference.

"I'm happy to hear that people with disabilities are embracing my candidature for chairman and Presidential flag bearer for NRM, I put in my nomination forms, so I can now ask for your support," said Museveni, who is the current chairman of the NRM.

In addition, he appealed to members of the party's delegate's conference and all party members nationally to endorse his bid for chairmanship so as to cement the gains the country has realized since NRM came to power in 1986.

The NRM is due to hold its special organs conference and national conference next month.

Ugandans voted for the multiparty political system through a referendum in 2005 before the previous elections. Museveni won his current presidency with 59.26 percent of the votes in 2006 after the parliament amended the Constitution to scrap the presidential term limit.

Kizza Besigye, leader of the opposition party Forum for Democratic Change and Museveni's biggest challenger with 37.39 percent of the votes in 2006, now heads an inter-party alliance of five major opposition parties to challenge Museveni. The inter- party cooperation is currently in the process of fronting one joint candidate.

An opinion poll published by the country's state-owned New Vision daily earlier this month put Museveni in the lead with 52.7 percent of the support from over 10,000 people surveyed across the country, while Besigye had 16 percent of the support.

Other opposition politicians, each having less than 6 percent, were still undecided who will solve their most pressing problems if elected, according to the poll.  ( Deng Shasha)