Vote Mugabe or Else, Army Chief Tells His Soldiers

Zimbabwe's army chief yesterday told soldiers they must leave the military if they do not vote for President Robert Mugabe in next month's run-off poll.

Chief-of-staff Major General Martin Chedondo said soldiers had signed up to protect Mugabe's principles of defending the revolution. 'If you have other thoughts, then you should remove that uniform,' he told them. Chedondo was speaking at a target-shooting competition outside Harare, the Herald newspaper reported.

Zimbabwe's generals, most of them veterans of the independence war against Britain, have, in the past, vowed never to salute the opposition candidate, Morgan Tsvangirai of the Movement for Democratic Change, if he is elected in the 27 June run-off election.

'Soldiers are not apolitical; only mercenaries are apolitical,' said the major general. 'We should therefore stand behind our commander-in-chief.' His comments came after civic groups in Zimbabwe said they were worried that most opposition voters were now too scared to participate in the election, adding that a free and fair poll was therefore no longer possible.

In a report last week, the International Crisis Group said military commanders opposed to Tsvangirai were instrumental in preventing a democratic transition after the March 29 election. The MDC won a majority in Parliament and Tsvangirai won the presidential race, though the official figures gave him too small a majority to prevent a run-off.

The crisis group warned of a 'growing risk of a coup' either before the 27 June run-off vote as a pre-emptive motive to deny Tsvangirai victory, or after a Tsvangirai win.

On Friday the MDC convened what it called a session of Parliament and declared itself as Zimbabwe's new ruling party - Tsvangirai has long been called 'Mr President' by his supporters. The opposition won 110 seats in the 210-seat parliament in the elections, giving it control of the legislature for the first time since independence in 1980.