REPUBLIKA.CO.ID, EDINBURGH - Just hours before Scotland's independence referendum, the fate of the United Kingdom rests on hundreds of thousands of wavering Scottish voters, as opinion polls showed supporters of the 307-year union just a whisker ahead of secessionists.

In an intense final day of campaigning on Wednesday, leaders of both sides beseeched Scots to seize the reins of history in a vote that has divided families, friends and lovers but also electrified this country of 5.3 million.

From the remote Scottish islands of the Atlantic to the toughest city estates of Glasgow, voters will be asked on Thursday to answer "Yes" or "No" to the question: "Should Scotland be an independent country?".

Five surveys - from pollsters YouGov, Panelbase, Survation, Opinium and ICM - showed support for independence at 48 percent, compared with 52 percent for the union.

An Ipsos MORI poll showed it even closer at 49 percent to 51 percent, while a second Survation poll, conducted by phone, showed unionists at 53 percent and separatists at 47 percent. The surveys also showed as many as 600,000 voters remained undecided with just hours to go before polling stations open at 0600 GMT on Thursday.

"This is our opportunity of a lifetime and we must seize it with both hands," Alex Salmond, Scotland's 59-year-old nationalist leader, told hundreds of supporters waving the white on blue Scottish flag who chanted "Yes we can."

"Scotland's future must be in Scotland's hands," Salmond said in Perth, a city in eastern Scotland 460 miles (740 km) north of London.

Invoking 18th-century economist Adam Smith and Scotland's greatest poet, Robert Burns, Salmond implored Scots to ignore warnings from London: "Don't let them tell us we can't. Let's do this now."

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