This from Daniel Howden in Bulawayo:
The ruling party in Zimbabwe has a detailed plan to murder opposition polling agents, bomb polling stations and march the electorate to the ballot box under armed guard to ensure an emphatic victory for Robert Mugabe in tomorrow's uncontested presidential run-off.
Minutes of a meeting of the regime's top security officials, the Joint Operations Command (JOC), seen by The Independent, outline the ruthless strategy which appears to be going ahead regardless of the withdrawal of the opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai from the race.
The notes, leaked from a JOC meeting late last week, include instructions to kill opposition MPs, for death squads to stuff ballot boxes in rural areas and the prevention of any rallies by the opposition. Detailed instructions were included on how to rig the vote: "Voters in a ward should surrender their IDs to the village head, and have their names taken down. On the day of voting, the respective village heads should queue outside the polling station with each member [voter] with a respective number. Each voter shall profess ignorance of the ability to write on his/her own... agents in the polling stations will be helping in marking X."
Howden goes on to say that the terror campaign in Zimbabwe 'is being described as a "politicide" - a deliberate and systematic attempt to wipe out an entire political class'. A copy of these JOC minutes has been sent to me. They include the following:
(2) No MDC agent shall be deployed at any polling station. Every succes[s]ful deployment of MDC agents - should costs [sic] those agents their lives.
15) More terror to be unleashed after elections...
Also sent to me, an email purporting to be MDC advice to its supporters:
The MDC are asking people NOT to participate in tomorrow[']s voting [exercise]. If you are somehow forced into the polling station please spoil your ballot. If you are forced to vote for r.g. - don't panic[.] NO ONE of any importance in this world will recognize this election anyway.